Storm chasing, a branch of photography that requires tenacity and perseverance in order to capture lightning strikes, was something I gave all of 20 minutes to before losing interest.
Well, the Bolt Hunter is a lightning camera trigger designed by Jeff Boyce, a photographer and product designer with over 10 years of storm chasing experience, and it may be the solution to this type of challenging photography. It’s currently on Kickstarter.
Typically, if shooting in manual mode, one has to guess where a bolt may next appear and manually trigger the shutter, hoping to capture a shot by chance. They can also use a traditional lightning trigger that reacts to sudden increases in light intensity by automatically firing the shutter.
Motion Horizons
How is the Bolt Hunter different than other lightning triggers on the market, though?
Some of the problems encountered with those others are inconsistent triggering, overexposed night shots, slowness in catching daytime strikes, and and an inability to adjust for sudden changes in ambient light.
The Bolt Hunter fits onto your camera’s cold shoe and is designed for “predictive triggering” by way of early optical signal detection of faint within-cloud (“intra-cloud”) flashes that precede a grounded flash.
The device also factors in shutter lag (the delay between activating the shutter release button and the image being recorded), setting up your camera to start the exposure milliseconds earlier thus ensuring a maximum chance of catching the various phases of a lighting storm in progress.
Bolt Hunter: The Future of Lightning Photography
Boyce claims the weather-sealed Bolt Hunter is one of the smallest lightning triggers on the market with a simple one-button setup, thus no finicky menu scrolling is required. It can run for a supposed 48+ hours on the built-in lithium battery. There’s also a Bluetooth mobile app, allowing users to remotely operate the device and adjust settings while taking shelter from the storms they’re shooting.
Depending on ambient light conditions, the detection range has reportedly been successful on strikes over 30 miles (48 km) away during the daytime – with further distances at night – but there will still be instances of missed shots if there is no preceding intra-cloud flash before a strike.
Motion Horizons
The Bolt Hunter is compatible with the majority of cameras brands including Canon, Sony, Fujifilm, Panasonic, Olympus, Pentax, Leica, Hasselblad, Minolta, Sigma, Contax, Kodak and Samsung.
It can be yours for a pledge of US$329 (MSRP $349) if all goes according to plan. Assuming the funding goal is met, it should ship worldwide in June.
Sources: Kickstarter, Bolt Hunter