Taken 6:30pm (ish) on Sunday 5th August hanging out of my Velux window on the roof.
Only possible by means of a lightning trigger which has sat pretty much unused due to the lack of storms since I bought it 3 years ago! Along with vast amounts of luck and good fortune.
The storm had been going for around an 3/4 hour with copious amounts of thunder and lightning but not a drop of rain. The trigger was going beserk but glancing at my camera display I saw no lightning on the photos. I was getting rather peeved and constantly fiddling with the manual settings to see what I could do. After about a hundred captures (many false activations) I couldn't see I had captured anything. Once the rain came it dropped in fashion and I had no choice but to retreat back inside and shut the window. Within a minute or so the roads were like rivers. (It didn't stop the ice cream man though - bottom left!).
After about ten minutes of stair rods it stopped instantly and this awesome rainbow display appeared. I didn't know it was possible but I swear there were three rainbows on show. The third being exceedingly faint. I'm not really sure if it's visible on this photo or whether I'm imagining it. The lens wasn't really wide enough to get it all on. This is the whole image. Not cropped at all.
Anyway, I thought the storm had done and shot a few images of the rainbow for posterity when the lightning hit once again as the storm moved away. The trigger fired off and once again the display on the camera showed me nothing.
It wasn't until I put the card in my laptop to look at the rainbow that I noticed my very last capture was this one below! (I've bought Lottery tickets for tonight!!!)
Thanks to a single retweet by Matt Hugo (MVH) it was picked up by a news company in Newcastle and subsequently appeared in today's Daily Express and Mirror news papers. I've since had emails from all over the place about it, USA, Canada, Mexico and even China which I couldn't understand a single symbol of!
It's appeared all over the internet since Sunday and the nice thing is that of all the hundreds of comments so far only two I've seen have screamed 'Photoshop'. I agree wholeheartedly that the photo looks odd but my lens was wet through, hence the blobs and out of focus parts, and it was a 10mm wide lens which makes parts of the image a funny shape. Besides, day time lightning photos just don't look right.
As much as I like Photoshop it has a lot to answer for these days when people scream its name as soon as they see a photo they perceive as impossible. Without my trigger this would have been impossible and I don't expect ever to capture anything like it ever again. Not in the day time anyway. I've got loads of night time ones.
If I wanted to be picky I'd have preferred the foreground to be a nice big cornfield with harvested bales scattered around but beggars can't be choosers!
I think I spotted that on Look North Paul? well done.We had a rainbow and lightning here today but not in the same direction!
Edited by user 07 August 2012 20:10:29(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
Really! What day was that on?
Absolutely stunning work, Paul! That's what it's all about.
Cheers Colin. Newcastle one would be right as it was a Newcastle news company who got in touch with me about it.
What a gem!! The hundreds of attempts were all worth it to get one like this - simply excellent
Cracking shot. Really shows up the increased brightness "inside" the rainbow as well.And on the Daily Express website (home of all the most reliable weather stories throughout the year )
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/338012/Another-bolt-from-the-blue
Nice one Paul, well captured.
Awesome Shame it's with the Express, but beggars can't be choosers
A superb photo Paul, well done. I`d love to have a try with a lightning trigger but I don`t know anything about them.Any advice would be welcome. (I have 2 Velux windows in the roof, so that`s a start)
Hi Eric.
It depends on what type of a camera you have really as to whether it's a non-starter or not.
The people I got mine from (Patchmaster) make them to fit Canon, Nikon, Sony and Pentax. Other than that there really isn't much to it.
It's simply a little box that sits on the hot shoe of your camera and detects the infra-red burst from a lightning flash. You can trigger it easily with a TV remote. I have the original model but they've since released an upgraded version at around £100. My original one was bought for about 35 quid three years ago.
It just sits on the hot shoe and the wire plugs into your remote shutter plug. Switch it on and just wait for the lightning to strike. That's about all there is to it really!
The Velux windows are OK until it pours it down and you have to shut them! I missed loads of strikes becasue of that. I've just bought a car window mounting clamp so next time I can bugger off out in the car and get a slightly better foreground!
Here's my set up...
Thanks for the info Paul.
I have a Canon 350D, which would probably be suitable. The only problem is the lack of thunderstorms around here, can`t remember when we last had a decent one.
I waited three years for a decent shot out of mine! Let's hope tonights models for 19th come off so I can get some more!
Well done mate superb as always - I'm checking out of Hull to go to Bempton I'll message you later to see where abouts at Flamborough your gonna be.
P.S Are you buying the super-tele out of loyalties ?
P.S Are you buying the super-tele out of royalties ?
Not heard a damn thing about money. T&C says I have to wait until month end.
Hopefully by the time you read this we might have met!