This was a great day for time-lapse because I made a tremendous discovery regarding the camera's abilities that nobody talks about. Its infrared sensor for its shutter remote is also used by cell phone for the time-lapse. The camera will turn off to save power after a minute. The cell phone keeps it going. The discovery is lightning detectors also work by detecting infrared bursts that immediately precede lightning strike. If it is a good one then the lightning will trigger the camera in between regular triggers from the cell phone.
By keeping the camera on through regular shots scheduled at one minute, there is no need to buy additional lightening detecting equipment. This is shown below.
The storm swept up and slapped so fast and so hard that hailstones bounced right into the living room. And I like that. But then brightened so quickly it blinds the infrared sensor and the camera shuts off rather quickly, 177 frames.
I live for this. The storm developed so quickly I hardly had time to set up the camera. The brightness shut the thing down.
Restarted, I thought nothing much would happen but a second storm worked up, the clouds circulate right in front and after it all passes and drying begins the sky goes light blue again and lightning strikes near the end. 288 frames.
This is the first lightning strike that I noticed the camera taking during time-lapse sessions.
But surely there are others. It was thundering and lightning a lot. Running this now I notice flashes earlier than this one. They can be lightning too. I haven't investigated those.
The thing is, now I know what my camera can do and wonder why I haven't notice anyone mention this. I've been reading hundreds of comments on Amazon for lightning sensors. People have a lot of complaints. And now I think I know why. Not every blast is good enough to capture within the sensor's range, for example the two wings of this building are cropping the sky, or the blast might occur deep in the cloud. Or it does capture the lightning and it's not all that. The RAW images are gone but I'm going back through what I have here to see if there's more because this is a tremendous discovery.
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