Not to long ago my friend Roman Kurywczack from Roamin with Roman Photo Tours, suggested I try a device for capturing photographs of lightning strikes. The device he suggested to me is made by MK Controls and it’s called the Lightning Bug. I decided to give it a try and I have been pretty pleased with the unit. Ever since I got it, the bug of chasing storms bit me… no pun intended.

Although it is entirely possible to record lightning strikes without the use of a trigger device, the Lightning Bug will not miss a strike and the percentage of keepers increases as opposed to photographing with a cable release and a neutral density filter if need be.

The  New York City Skyline is of course my very familiar and close to home place and quickly became my  number one spot on my list of places to photograph thunder and lightning storms.

Although trying to photograph lightning strikes in what we might consider optimal conditions can become a bit of a challenge at times. For starters strikes do not hit in the exact spots that we would like them to. Sometimes there is delay between strikes and sometimes storms are so severe that you can’t even see the skyline when there passing by.

So needless to say you need a number of factors to all come together when pursuing that perfect shot. I have yet to capture such image, but I have learned thru out the years that patience and being persistent pays off at the end.

So I hope to have available time to continue to chase the storms until I can capture the NYC skyline with the perfect image I have in mind. Then it will be time to move on to new locations and maybe perhaps pursue bigger storms to capture with my camera. My hubby is afraid of the pursuit of twister in the near future.

The images in my post today are my first attempts at capturing Lightning over the NYC skyline with the Lightning Bug. If you are interested in the unit you can receive free shipping by using the following code at checkout: scandelariof12

The image below is one of only 4 frames I was able to capture during the severe storm last Wednesday from Hoboken, NJ.  We anticipated a severe storm in route, but it came by surprise much quicker and stronger than planned. We were caught in the middle of at least 60 mph winds at the end of a fishing pier by the Hudson River. We got soaked, hit with pretty larges pieces of hail, pretty much white out conditions and holding on to our tripods so they would not fly away with the umbrellas like Mary Poppins.