Photographer Combines 30 Photos For Stupendous Lightning Image
A photographer captured a series of breathtaking photos during an intense lightning storm before compositing them into one incredible image.
Turkish photographer Uğur İkizler closely follows weather patterns and when a huge lightning storm wwas forecast he grabbed his camera and headed to his balcony.
The storm did not disappoint, over the course of an hour on June 16, İkizler took scores of lightning photos and later picked the best 30 to merge into one composite image.
İkizler tells DIY Photography that he was fortunate that night because there was no rain.
“If it had rained, there would have been water drops on the lens which causes the image to become distorted,” he says.
İkizler shared the single photos used in the composite to his blog that show lightning bolts striking the Sea of Marmara opposite his home town of Mudanya. He also created a YouTube video timelapse (see below) showing all the different lightning strikes.
He says the storm was just the right distance away to frame the shots perfectly. İkizler used a Canon 5D Mark IV on a tripod set to ISO 800 with an EF 24-105mm f/4 IS II USM lens attached.
Despite making it perfectly clear that the image is a composite, the photographer says some people thought it was a real photo and all of the lightning bolts had struck at the same time.
Amateur Astrophotographer
İkizler regularly updates his Instagram feed with pictures of comets, galaxies, and other celestial objects.
IFL Science notes that lightning is a rapid discharge of energy from the clouds, usually formed when negative charges in the bottom of a cloud are attracted to positive charges in the ground; these charges have to be great enough to overcome the insulating properties of the surrounding air.
When a connection is made, the positive and negative charges rush to meet each other, and lightning heats the air along its path, making it expand. Thunder is the sound of the expanding air.
More of İkizler’s work can be found on his website, Instagram, and Facebook.
Image credits: All photos by Uğur İkizler.
