Strike Near Saguaro Lake

Originally uploaded by John Groseclose

For the past month or so, I’ve been playing with a lightning trigger that I build based on this DIY page’s instructions, slightly modified to take into account the fact that I shoot with a Nikon D80 and the original schematics call for a Canon plug on the trigger.

Being able to photograph lightning strikes in daylight has opened a whole new world to me – I no longer have to simply machine-gun the shutter and pray that lightning strikes while it’s open.

Of course, the trigger’s been “magic” – once I built it, the storms that I’d been expecting for this season have not been anywhere near what we were expecting.

I still shoot a lot at night, balancing my shutter speed against the ambient to get long exposures.

Now that we’re coming into the last month of the Arizona Monsoon, I’ll have a little more time to update on a regular basis. Last month’s CLS/AWL workshop with Don Giannatti, for example, needs a write-up.

More daylight lighting photographs.