The Tip-Top-Again

Last year, I showed you some pictures of the very top of the Washington Monument, shot from the ground with my old camera and lens. Well, for this trip to DC, I had my new 7D and a 100-400 L series zoom, which means I've got more pixels and more reach. So I'm back to the top of the monument.

If you look close at this shot, you can see people and their cameras in the windows at the top of the monument. I didn't go up there this time, because they give all the tickets away too fast, but I did make it up there last time, and I shared my shots here, here and here.

Now, as for the very tip, there it is. You can see the multiple gold-plated lightning rods that surround the original aluminum capstone. From the ground, you can't really see any of this. You can also see some of the wires running down the edges of the stones, also with small lightning rods on them. As the highest point in DC, this thing attracts a lot of lightning.

No Lightning

I drove home from the movies last night in and out of some rough thunderstorms. They were all localized, though, so when you weren't right under them, you got a pretty good light show from the lighting. Once I got home, I grabbed the camera and the tripod to see if I could get some pictures, as it wasn't raining at all near my house. I tried for about half an hour at three in the morning to capture some shots, but I got nothing worth anything. These are the best of the shots, and you can actually see a little bit of flash in two of them, but not enough to make it interesting, I'm afraid.



I've had a little more luck in the past, but it takes some pretty specific conditions to get decent lightning shots. You can check out my old pics here and here.

BOOM!

So, I'm sitting here at my computer desk, recording some Christmas music, when I hear some thunder outside. I keep working. I hear more thunder. Keep working. But something is gnawing away inside my head. I should be doing something else. Then I realize I don't hear any rain. And it's after sunset, so it's dark. And there's thunder, which means lighting, and it's dark, and it's not raining. I should be outside trying to get a picture of some lightning! I haven't done that in probably five years, and at least three cameras ago. So I grab all my stuff and head outside. I set up the camera, set it to a wide-open shutter for some five second exposures and try to shoot. But the camera won't auto-focus. I try to set it to focus on infinity, but I can't see anything through the lens to see if I have it right. I waited too late to go outside, because the storm seemed to have moved away. But, I got one shot out of about fifty. It's out of focus, there's water on the lens, but it's lightning! Pretty cool, eh?

Lightning Strikes Once (Ernie Classic)

Since I don't have anything new to show you today, I thought I'd show you something from the Ernie Classic file. This lightning strike was captured a few years ago out the window of my bedroom. Photographing lightning is pretty tough. You wait until it's storming after dark, you open up the shutter of the camera, and you wait. And if you wait long enough, you get a shot like this.