This hypnotizing video of slo-mo lightning took 30 days, 20,000 miles and 10TB of data
Dec 4, 2017
Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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Thunderstorms are awe-inspiring, whether you watch them live, in photos or in videos. But videographer and photographer Dustin Farrell has made a slow-motion video that makes thunderstorm more enchanting than ever.
Dustin chased storms during the summer of 2017 and collected his best shots in a short film titled Transient. It shows lightning in slow motion and turns a sudden flash of light into a hypnotizing electrical drawing in the sky. If you enjoy watching the lightning, you’ll enjoy it even more in slow motion.
As Dustin writes, most of the footage was captured in uncompressed raw at 1000 fps with the Phantom Flex4K camera. As for the lenses, he used mostly Zeiss Otus 28, 55, and 85mm at f/1.4.
It took over 30 days of shooting, over 20K miles of travel and 10TB of data to get all the footage. And it took a lot of stress and unpredictability. Sometimes, a ten-hour chase and 500 miles wouldn’t have given any results. And other times, nature would be more than rewarding. According to Dustin, this was one of the most difficult projects he has ever attempted during his long career.
Most of the lightning was captured in Arizona, and some of it was also filmed in the Great Plains. What he learned during the chase is that lightning is like a snowflake and that every bolt is different. And after watching his video, we can confirm it, too. He also points out that that lightning varies a lot in speed. Because of this, even at 1000fps some bolts lasted too short during the playback, so they didn’t make it into the final video. On the other hand, some bolts last so long, that it looks almost unreal.
I really love thunderstorms, and I’ve watched them like hypnotized ever since I was a kid. So, watching a thunderstorm in slow motion was a special treat for me. Dustin has invested a lot of time, patience, skill and resources into this video. And I can say it paid off, big time.
If you’d like to see more of Dustin’s work, visit his website, Facebook page, Vimeo channel and Instagram.
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Dunja Đuđić
Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, concerts, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.
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8 responses to “This hypnotizing video of slo-mo lightning took 30 days, 20,000 miles and 10TB of data”
“Dustin chased storms during the summer of 2017 and collected his best shits in a short film”
Might want to edit that. I don’t want to see that film.
:blushing:
Thanks for pointing out! It’s corrected.
That spellchecker is really worthless sometimes. :D
Where’s the video?
“Dustin chased storms during the summer of 2017 and collected his best shits in a short film titled Transient.” really? I don’t want to watch a short film about this man’s shits.
ok, undoubtedly a stunning video.
except for the title ( really? was it made with WordArt? ) and the “epic” music as soundtrack. it doesn’t need any more pathos, maybe something to highlight the poetry of the scenery but not something so pompous and lacking of any possible elegance
$140,000 Camera + 2 Lens = $149,480.
Nice video – but what is missing are music credits. I would call this at least “bad style” …
This guy spends untold dollars and a month on the road to capture all this amazing lightning and all some of you can do is bitch about the music? Or, the credits, or the lack of. Or, the title! Good grief, ya’ll. Please point me to your miraculous lightning video so I can see what one is SUPPOSED to look like.
Great video, dude!
Thank you!