This Epic 4K Film Captures the Beauty of Lightning at 1,000FPS
Photographer and filmmaker Dustin Farrell spent the summer chasing lightning with a $110,000 Phantom Flex4K high-speed camera. What resulted was this 4K short film, titled “Transient,” that shows the epic beauty of lightning in 1,000fps slow motion.
“My respect and admiration for storm chasers became even stronger this year,” Farrell says. “This is one of the most difficult projects I have ever attempted in my career. On several occasions I found myself uncomfortable either mentally or physically.
“There were at least 10 days where I returned home with my tail between my legs and nothing to show after a ten hour chase and 500 miles. There were also a couple of days that I drove home with an ear to ear smile that lasted for hours.”
Farrell also says that the Phantom Flex4K works well for capturing difficult-to-capture shots of lightning since it’s post triggered.
“The Phantom Flex4K is a camera that must be post triggered while shooting high speed,” he says. “This works out well for capturing lightning because the camera is always recording and rewriting to internal ram. As soon as a bolt appears in my view finder I trigger the camera to save what has been stored in the ram.”
In all, Farrell captured about 10 terabytes of data in creating this jaw-dropping 3-minute visual experience.
