07/15/2026
I temporarily paused taking lightning shots last night when I saw that a vehicle was going to pass, so that I could bag a shot with those red streaks and the road illuminated. That way, I could have an interesting bottom half of the photo, before resuming lightning shots with my camera on a tripod to maintain the composition. Later, I pasted the road section of the photo into the bottom half of the photo that had my favourite bolt in it.
My method for shooting nighttime lightning is to dial in as long a shutter speed as possible, and wait for strikes to occur during the time that the camera is open and actively taking a long exposure photo. That's the main thing, and secondary to that is to set an appropriate ISO (how sensitive the sensor is to light) and the aperture (how large the lens hole is, and how fast it lets light in).
Last night was a little more finicky, since the atmosphere was filled with wildfire smoke. This caused the lightning to be dimmer (and redder!) than usual, so I had to make the camera more sensitive to light by upping the ISO. Lightning is so so bright, but its fast, so the sensor needs to be sensitive enough to register it. The increased ISO also makes the camera take in ambient light more readily, so the shutter speed must be shortened or else the whole thing is overexposed. I think normally in rural areas, I'm at 30 second shutter speeds, ISO 100 for lightning. The series of images which resulted in this capture had the ISO increased to 800 for dim lightning, and the shutter speed decreased to 13 seconds to balance the exposure back out.
Near Carsonby Ontario (South Ottawa) July 14 2026
Fuji X-T3 - Fuji XF10-24mm F4
13 seconds - f/4 - ISO 800
