Photographing on bulb setting by Amanda Smith

This is an article written by Amanda Smith, professional photographer in Wyoming. The article is about photographing night skies in Wyoming, using your bulb setting, or using a longer exposure on your camera.

Here is a fabulous image of a Thunder Boomer over Wyoming that I captured just after dusk a week or so ago during a thunderstorm.  We discussed "discussing" this in my previous post, yesterday.  So here we go!

The beauty of this image, is that the skies were fairly clear, except for one lone and very large thunder boomer in the distant Wyoming sky.

Thunder Boomer and Stars over a Wyoming Sky.
Photographer Amanda Smith of Wyoming ©

I originally set out to capture the stars, which were in abundance already, even at dusk.  When I saw this boomer in the distance, and the lightning show that was happening within it, I quickly went from shooting stars, to shooting clouds.

I set my Nikon camera setting to a 20 second exposure, set my 70-200mm zoom lens f2.8 and an ISO of 200, and loaded her up onto a steady and sturdy tripod.   Making sure that there wasn't even a hint of wind, I was ready to shoot.  (You don't want windy situations when taking long exposure shots, the clouds move enough that the long exposure will capture the movement, and the wind will actually cause some shake in the camera.)

Lightning was striking within this huge cloud about five to ten seconds, its was surreal to say the least, so in knowing this was happening every five to ten seconds, and there was no wind (so not much of a chance of much cloud movement) I set my exposure to 20 seconds.  BAM! two lighting shows later, I had a beautiful shot of the stillness of this majestic and powerful cloud.  To my delight, above and around the clouds, in the deep blue dusk colored sky, were a plethora of stars, that at such an early time, and only a 20 second exposure, looked pretty close to "still" for this photograph.

It has won National attention already, happily touting my name Amanda Smith as the photographer, and it went viral when I posted it on my facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/AmandaSmithPhotographs

I couldn't be happier with a night sky image, as I am with this one, and I encourage each of you to "keep your eye on the skies" and right around dusk, get ready to take some breathtaking shots.

Play around a bit with you exposure length of time, especially if there is any wind at all.  Stay as close to f2.8 as you can (depending on the fastness of your lens) and use a tripod.  Use a zoom lens no less than up to 200mm if you really want something fantastic, a shorter distance lens just might not give you the pizazz you are looking for in most cases like this scenario.

Have fun shooting and please feel free to email me if you have any questions on your next photo venture!  Be sure and check out my website for new photos uploaded weekly at: www.amandasmithphotography.com

and if you haven't already, and if you feel so inclined, please feel free to visit my Facebook page and give me a LIKE.  :)   https://www.facebook.com/AmandaSmithPhotographs.

Happy shooting!

Amanda Smith
Professional Photographer, Wyoming
Professional Photography Instructor
info@amandasmithphotography.com

Shooting for Christ, Focusing on God.