Electrical storm, Bangkok

Late night, getting into the early hours of the morning, in Bangkok and an electrical storm moves through.   After being woken by several loud thunderclaps, I decided to get up and open the curtains of my hotel room to check out the light show!    And what a light show it was.    Lightning was almost continuous for over an hour and a half convincing me to drag out the camera and try my luck at capturing it.

Lightning storm, Bangkok, Thailand

With the camera set up for what I thought was a reasonable composition from where I was, I used the remote shutter release so as not to physically touch the camera and introduce camera shake, and experimented with shutter speeds in the range of 2 to 8 seconds.   I took in excess of 500 frames over a 90 minute period many of which,  of course, didn’t result in worthwhile photos.    It is really a matter of trip the shutter and hope that lightning occurs during the exposure, serendipity.

I recall this particular frame as it flashed up on the camera’s LCD display and being excited that I might have something good.    On reviewing the images later, it was clearly the best image I got for the night.

For the tech-minded; Canon 5D Mk2 at 24mm, F5.6, 4 seconds, ISO 400.