Regardless of the format of camcorder you use there are some tips to making good lightning videos common to all (VHS, VHS-C, Super VHS, 8 mm, HI 8 mm, Betacam, or digital).

     1. Always set the focus to infinity.

     2. Day lightning will turn out well, especially if the background sky is dark.  If the sky is lighter you can reduce the exposure setting to a larger f-stop number which will darken the background.  The lightning is so bright that it will still look good with reduced exposure if it is a good looking strike to the naked eye in the first place.

     3. Do not change the shutter speed normally set to 60 (50 in PAL format?).  I tried going down to 30 and up to 120.  I lost out on several lightning strikes that I knew were right in the center of the picture.

     4. Do not be afraid to zoom in when the lightning is more distant.  If the strike is clear and vivid it will still be that way on video.  If the strike doesn't look that vivid to the naked eye because of haze, rain and anything else in the air to reduce the brilliance, it will not look much better on video whether you zoom in or not.

     5. Here comes the tip you probably won't find anywhere else.  After you shoot your footage you will want to play it back on your VCR, to make a copy of a good shot, and/or to bring images onto your computer.  For the stills you will pause your VCR and go through a strike frame by frame to find the best one.  Sometimes everything seems to be there frame by frame.  Other times you will stop on the frame before the strike with nothing, click to go forward one frame, see a flash, but not have it show up on the next frame either.  The flash is in between the 2 freeze frames!  Can you get that flash on a freeze frame or not?  The answer is, yes!  You will not find the answer in the manual that comes with a camcorder or VCR.  In the manuals it is specified that playback is 30 frames/sec in NTSC format in the US and other countries (25 frames/sec in PAL format in Europe).  If you ask a knowledgeable salesman or call technical support for your equipment you will get the same answer.  But, because lightning is so fast an entire strike can show up in between frames.  The following is a rare application that sales and tech support people don't realize needs further explanation.

     There are actually twice the number of frames recorded (60 NTSC, 50 PAL).  To get the other half of the freeze frames/second you need to copy the segment onto another VCR (or from a camcorder to a VCR).  You may have to do this several times until the other set of frames become the freeze frames (My record is 12 tries on one particular strike, so don't get discouraged).  Most of the time for day lightning (and much of night lightning as well) the freeze frame with branches of a cloud-to-ground strike appear on the first frame only.  Without this tip you will only see branches on a freeze frame for 50% of the lightning strikes.  Try it!  You will be amazed at how much you thought you missed out on but had all along!

   Digital Cameras and Camcorders Only:  You must use the S-Video connection when copying between two digital devices to get the other set of freeze frames.  The loss of quality is still not noticeable using the analog connection.  If you use the pure digital connection you will never get the other set of freeze frames.  The digital time correction coding locks the copying to the original set of freeze frames if a digital connection between two digital devices is used.  After you get the other set of freeze frames using the analog S-Video connection, use the pure digital connections for other copies or to bring images onto your computer or make copies of your tapes.