Storm Chaser Creates Jaw-Dropping Reel of 4K 1,000fps Lightning Footage

Storm chaser and filmmaker Dustin Farrell (@dustin_farrell) has released a striking (no pun intended) new 4K highlight reel that condenses two years of storm chasing with a Phantom Flex 4K into three and a half minutes of jaw-dropping 1,000fps footage.

The film is called Transient 2, and it’s a followup to Dustin’s first 4K 1,000fps storm chasing film “Transient” that he released back in 2017. It’s a combination of 1,000fps Phantom footage of lightning, as well as more traditional time-lapse footage to hold in contrast.

To create the film you see above, Farrell travelled 35,000 miles over the course of two years and recorded 30 terabytes worth of footage, which he then spent 300 hours editing and color-grading. Somehow, he only got 3 speeding tickets in that time… not bad.

As he explains in the video’s description, the Phantom Flex 4K that he uses is the perfect camera for recording slow motion footage of lightning, because it must be “post triggered.”

“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,” writes Farrell. “Shooting at high frame rates requires a lot of light. Therefore, I mostly used my Zeiss Otus 28, 55, and 85mm lenses wide open at f/1.4.”

There’s no describing a film like this, you have to see it. So turn down the lights, put on your favorite pair of headphones, and click play for some 4K, 1,000fps storm chasing footage that’s incredible to behold. And if you haven’t already seen the original Transient film, you can check that out here.

(via Laughing Squid)