‘The Perfect Storm’, shot with 4 cameras at one of world’s most amazing resorts!
This ‘Perfect Storm’ time lapse is my favourite work of 14 months in the Philippines. Actually it’s my favourite one of all time. This time lapse is more than a dream come true – it’s achieving a photography goal that I thought would be so hard to do, that I’d spend the rest of my life pursuing it. And even if I would find the right conditions and magically be in the right location, with my camera and tripod, I didn’t think it would be possible to capture in a single exposure.
Capturing a photo of lightning is hard. Capturing a long time lapse of a lightning storm is much harder. But to capture it with the Milky Way in the background is the hardest thing I can think of. Top that with capturing it with red sprites (rare huge electrical discharges above the thunderstorm) and you have something nearly impossible.
If you’re into photography, you will ererstand the difficulty of it. You can plan the Milky Way, but you can’t plan a lightning storm. Even if you manage to find both at the same time, you need to be very lucky to be in the right location to frame both, without the sky getting too cloudy as well. Above all that, you’re dealing with an extreme difference in light: very bright lightning versus the very dark Milky Way. They usually require completely different settings.
Shooting ‘The Perfect Storm’
When I was shooting my time lapse movie at the Dedon Island Resort at Siargao island, I got lucky beyond my wildest dreams. Not only was I at a perfect location at the exact right angle, but I was even armed with 4 cameras and managed to capture 4 stunning time lapse scenes at the same time. And most amazing of all, this lightning storm stayed at the right distance, at the same location for nearly 5 hours. Thanks to this, I was able to capture both storm and Milky Way without the lightning frames getting too overexposed. What a lucky night!
And to top all of that, even some red sprites appeared! They are vague and only appear 1/24 of a second in this footage, but they’re there. To be honest, I didn’t even notice it myself at first, someone who spend years trying to capture it, pointed it out to me. I once said in an interview that my ultimate shot would be to shoot red sprites. Back then they had never been been photographed properly before. It has only been since the last few years, since digital camera’s have got very light-sensitive sensors, that a few people have been able to capture them.
Gear, software & settings
Shot with a Nikon D800 + 14-24/f2.8, D800 + 16-35/f4, D7000 + 17-7-/f2.8-4 and Sony RX100iv. Edited (RAW only) with Lightroom, Photoshop and LRTimelapse, composed in After Effects.
At the time of setting up my cameras, I didn’t really know what the ideal settings would be. I had no idea what the lightning storm would do, if things would too over exposed as it came closer, or underexposed as it moved it away. I had to go with one setting and leave it with that, you just can’t change settings while shooting this. But I was there to shoot the Milky Way, so for me I had to focus on that and set my settings for that, just hoping for the best. I did some testshots and decided to underexpose slightly, hoping that I’d still be able to get the Milky Way right in post, without overexposing the lightning frames. Settings used were ISO 1600-3200, 15-20 seconds shutter speed at the lowest aperture for each lens.
Things worked out pretty well, only some of the brightest frames were overexposed and in postprocessing my RAW files I was able to lighten the Milky Way. I did have a very hard time creating the scenes with as little flicker as possible. To fix this I had to decrease my editing a lot, basically only adjusting white balance, exposure, contrast and highlights. Where I usually add Clarity, fix Shadows, increase Whites, adjust Blacks and adjust my Curves, for some reason it all caused flicker in these scenes. And de-flickering a lightning scene like this doesn’t really work, as you can imagine 😉
It’s not about the gear
What’s interesting about the gear is that I used 3 classes of cameras. The D800 being a professional full-frame-camera, D7000 being an ‘amateur’ crop-camera and a tiny Sony compact camera. The question we photographers get asked most, above anything else, is what gear we use. People always tend to think it’s the gear that achieves the result. A bigger better camera does not make you a better photographer, any experienced photographer will tell you that. It is more important to know your camera (and post-processing) than it is to have a more expensive one. I’ve achieved amazing results with each 3 types of cameras. Can you even tell what camera I used for each shot?
So people, don’t let your gear ever stop you from creating whatever you want. It’s not about the camera, it’s about the photographer. Of all things that go into capturing something, your type of camera really is the least important 😉
View the full time lapse movie and read all about the Dedon Island project.
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Hi, we are Martien Janssen and Jen Yap! I am a Dutch Travel Photographer & Filmmaker, specialising in Landscape, Aerial, Night Sky and Time Lapse Photography. Jen is a doctor from the Philippines who does most writing here. Follow us as we travel create cool photos & videos!
umm these photos are AMAZING!! like they need to be postcards or more! you have great skills!
Thanks, great idea 🙂
Wow, this is incredible, your pictures are amazing!! good job:)
Thanks Helene!
Absoutely love how you’ve captured these night images, I need to work on my night photography!
Thanks 🙂
Hello Martien, you made amazing pictures! Thank you for your suggestions!
Thanks Edoardo!
Amazing job! Your post is very inspiring! Talk about being in the right place, at the right time! But no job would get one without your talent, of course!
Thanks 🙂
WOW! This is just stunning! I love your photos and the timing for lighting and the Milky Way was amazing! Great job 🙂
Thanks, glad you like it!
Great video! Love the way you managed to capture these amazing moments in time:)
Thanks Jack! I was as ready for it as I could be 🙂
My goodness this is phenomenal. Can’t stop watching. How talented you are!
Thank you so much!
That video is absolutely unreal. Awesome job capturing all those elements in one piece. You should definitely be proud of yourself because it’s quite an accomplishment.
Thanks a lot, much appreciated!
Amazing article / footage and photos. I’m a big fan of your work, just stunning..
Awesome, thank you so much!
WOW! I mean, there really are no words!! Your work is incredible, and I’m more than a little bit jealous of your gear set up.
Haha thanks, know that it wasn’t all my gear, I borrowed 2 DSLR camera’s + lens + tripod for this shoot. It’s impossible (nothing is..) is to travel around with all that extra gear! So I was extra lucky that of all nights, it happened when I had this extra gear with me.
Mind boggling video with a real probability of going viral. You’ve worked really hard on this so kudos to you. The final product here is from one camera or you’ve combined shots from all three?
Thanks 🙂 It’s footage from all 4 camera’s that shot at the same time.
Wow, great,super amazed to your photos and video. Keep up the good blog.
Thanks! Will do :)|
Really amazing pictures ! Thanks for sharing your art 😉
Thanks Camille, glad you enjoyed it!
Wonderful pictures
Oh my goodness, this post is just exquisite! Your photography and words are simply stunning, really am speechless. Looks like heaven on earth!
Thanks Lisa, great to hear 🙂
Great work it needs serious dedication to capture the world the way you have done it
Yes 🙂
Oh my lord! These photos are absolutely incredible!!! Thank you for sharing 🙂
Thanks Liberty, thanks for commenting! 🙂
Wow! That is so cool. Nice editing. Thanks for the tips.
thanks David!
Pictures are wonderful and amazing you might have traveled a lot on this planet earth
You must have taken a lot of your time and resources to share this images thanks
This is so amazing! One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. You may be proud!
Thank you so much Wendy 🙂
Wow!!1 This is my first time coming across this concept. There are travelers, and they are addicts.
Hahaha, yeah, guess so!
WOW absolutely stunning photos. They are postcard worthy and I’m about to buy a flight and a new camera.
Thanks 🙂 Enjoy!
You should be very proud of these photos, you are very talented. I really enjoyed the time lapse, there is something enjoyable about watching a lightening storm once your not too close.
Thank you Laura 🙂
Wow! What an incredible capture! I love the encouragement about it’s not the equipment, it’s the photographer. I’ll keep practicing!
Thanks Carmen, go for it!
Wow. Just wow. These photos are incredible! I have only ever tried to capture something like this once and I failed miserably. Thank you for the tips and inspiration. I’m going to have to do some more research and try again!
Thanks Claire. Doesn’t come easy, but practice makes perfection 😉
I’m speechless! I loved how you captured all these amazing shots and the Perfect Storm video. Wow, wow, wow!
I just recently got myself a mirrorless camera and I am still experimenting on how to use it – practice makes perfect!
Hi Zoya, thank you. Funny enough I just used those words in previous comment 🙂
Oh my goodness!!! Such stunning photography! A couple months ago, when there was a storm here in my place, I tried to do some photography and none turned out they way I wanted them to be! So, I get you! You’re amazing!!!
It’s the hardest thing ever, I’ve gone out so many times of the past decade, and usually turn up with nothing. And sometimes you finally get something good, then you mess up thanks to using the wrong settings, but with so few times to practice, it just takes a while.
That video was just awesome. I have always been interested in doing short clips and travel videos and this is very inspiring for me to practice more. Any tips for handheld shaky videos?
Anyways, glad that you’ve had a wonderful time shooting your masterpieces in the Philippines 🙂
Thanks Ricci. You’d need to use a stabilizer when shooting, like a DJI Osmo or similar, or stabilize the video in post. After Effects has Warp Stablizer that does a pretty good job, it’s easy as well, just takes a long time to analyze the footage..
Staying in the Philippines and having all time to shoot sure paid off 🙂
such beautiful photography!
Thanks 🙂
I really wish I had more of a knack for photography as these images are truly incredible!! You should be incredibly proud of them. I love the dramatic music in the background of the time lapse video – I was almost expecting something to pop up with the suspense!
Thanks 🙂 I am proud of it, all elements came together so well that night.
Amazing article / footage and photos. I’m a big fan of your work, just stunning..
Thank you so much!