DSLR Images of my DRSSTC

[Phoenix]

Hello everybody 

I have just bought my first DSLR - a Canon EOS D 750. I have made some long-time-exposures images of my DRSSTC. I really want to share these images with you because i think they look awesome.
The OCD was set to around 1000A. The On-Time was 300µS with 120 BPS. I estimated the sparks to be about 2,5m long. I think i have the right tuning point now because i am constantly getting groundstrikes.
You can click on the pictures to enlarge them.








Here i have some information about the images:
Image 1 : 4s exposure time; 20mm focal length, F3.5 Aperture; ISO 100
Image 2 : 2.5s exposure time; 20mm focal length, F3.5 Aperture; ISO 200
Image 3 : 4s exposure time; 18mm focal length, F3.5 Aperture; ISO 100

Greetings,
Phoenix

[Mads Barnkob]

Great pictures, though they are not completely sharp due to the low F-stop, if you want to get some sharper single streamer photoes where do not have 500 sparks in the same picture, use the same long exposure time, but turn your BPS way down to 1-10 BPS or so.

I might be spoiled by having a 5D, but you could surely use a ISO setting higher than 200 without getting too much noise?

What are you using for developing the pictures? Are you shooting jpeg or raw? I recommend raw as you can save some bad pictures by adjusting lighting afterwards and fix noise.

[Phoenix]

Thank you for your feedback. Yes, you are right, the pictures are not perfectly sharp but in full resolution (6000x4000) you can see much more details in the sparks. I have only posted a version with a lower resolution for the forum. Here i have some closeups of the sparks. The spark formation looks really interesting.




I will try to take some more images using low BPS and a higher ISO setting on the DSLR. I am always using the raw format because then i can edit the pictures afterwards to make them look better.

[Phoenix]

Today i tried to take some closeup images of groundstrikes into concrete. I finally managed to focus the DSLR properly and i changed the settings a little bit (higher ISO).
I think the pictures look much better than before. I really like the purple glow around the sparks because of the ionised air.
If you download the pictures or open them in a new tab you can zoom into them and see more details.

[Uspring]

Nice pictures The arcs like to retrace previous paths due to the lower breakdown voltages in the hot and therefore less dense air there. The parallel displacements are caused by light air drafts. A lower BPS probably will affect that, i.e. larger displacements and maybe less tendency to retrace, since the air will have cooled off more between bursts.