lightning

well, it's been two weeks so that must mean it's time for a new entry! lots going on... all good... but mix in a some technology issues... not good... and you have a 2-week delay. anyway... if you're still here, thanks for your patience and checking back.

our good friends the meyers invited us down to their beach abode for the weekend and the first night down we were treated to a spectacular lightning show over the water.
i've tried photographing lightning before with this cellphone.




if it's one of those rare but real intense strikes that seems to last more than a nanosecond it's possible to capture it without a long shutter exposure and with a little luck.

and of course you need a little more luck if you're using a camera that has a bit of a shutter delay.

but this is what it looks like on a motorola e815.
from my understanding the bands are partly due to what is called rolling shutter effect. cellphones don't have a physical shutter mechanism. using software they record the frame line-by-line from top to bottom. it's not one single snapshot. add in this particular phone's shutter speed which is 1/21th a second (yes, that's a 21 for some reason) and you get this effect.