Special Edition: Lightning Strikes Twice!

One of the more challenging shots for the amateur photographer to capture is a bolt of lightning. It requires being in the right place at the right time - with your camera, of course.

It's something I've been trying to for years, and forget about using a bottle - capturing lightning on film is about as hard as it gets for this amateur!

I've tried snapping pictures of the sky as soon as a flash of lightning appears, but my trigger finger is never fast enough. I've tried setting up a tripod on stormy nights and using long exposures in hopes of capturing a bolt within the time the shutter is open, but with no success.

So when Emily suggested using her camera to try and take pictures from the passenger seat of her car of the lightning that was streaking across the sky, I thought my chances of success were so low it wasn't even worth reaching into the back seat for the camera bag.

But it's a good thing she suggested it, because...SUCCESS!! Here is my first-ever photograph of lightning:


Here are some "flash facts" about lightning from National Geographic:

• Lightning bolts can be as long as 5 miles.


• They can raise the air temperature by 50,000°F.


• The earth is struck by an average of 100 lightning bolds per second.


• The odds of you being hit by lightning in your lifetime are 1 in 3000.


• If your hair starts rising during an electrical storm, get inside!


• Ligtning bolts carry a hundred million electrical volts.


• The number of watts equals the number of volts times the number of amps (math fact!).


• Jigowatt, as it was used in Back to the Future, is actually spelled gigawatt and is equal to 1 billion watts. jigo...what?


• Doc Brown's first successful test of the time-traveling DeLorean occurred at 1:21 a.m - precisely the same number of jigowatts needed to send Marty McFly back to 1985. That's heavy, Doc!
  

These last few facts came not from National Geographic, but another scientifically aimed web site: Futurepedia...everything you want to know - and more - about the movie Back to the Future!

And on this night, lightning happened to strike twice:

In the future I hope to capture some shots of lightning with surrounding scenery - a city skyline, a country road, or whatever else I can find if I'm in the right place at the right time.

But back here in good ol' 2009, I can't be too picky. I got my first successful shot of lightning, and the future looks bright!