Strange Lightning video from today.

[Evildead666]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=QO4E2J0V

I tried to cut it down a bit, but couldn't get it any smaller. (Its 3Mb)

If you load it into Media player classic and stop it at 6s, and then click on the frame by frame button, you will see what looks like a yellow lightning on the left, in front of a tree in the garden, and then the lightning 'hand' on the right, with another yellow bolt on the right, in front of our hedge, which is a couple of metres away.
Then a few frames of a really bright bolt of lightning which looks normal but cool.

btw, I am not running inside because of the lightning at the end, but because it started raining and I wanted to get to a covered vantage point to continue filming.
This was the best vid I got though before the battery and the storage ran out.

Not brilliant quality, but it was captured in 576p, and re-encoded to mkv/aac for DXVA compatibility.

If anyone has any views on what the yellow parts are, please feel free .

[degrub]

nothing but black.

post some of the frame captures ?

[Evildead666]

Media Player Classic Home Cinema, or VLC.
I use MPC-HC, but it should work with VLC.
Its encoded in x264, and the audio in AAC.

If you have Linux, I don't know

you could also change the container to MP4 with YAMB (Yet Another MP4 Box)

edit : I'm working on getting another 3 lightning vids into a smaller video, but it means encoding twice to be able to split exactly where I want, so I'm doing a 3Mbps first encode, then 1Mbps second encode.

Its sweet to be able to see the lightning take form frame by frame, especially since it usually only lasts two or three frames. The brightness of them is also awesome.

edit2 : MPC-HC has the 'step' button at the bottom that allows you to advance frame by frame, not sure if VLC does.

[Evildead666]

nothing but black.

post some of the frame captures ?

Not a bad idea since its about 3 or 4 frames.

hang on a tick.

[degrub]

those are reflection/refractions inside the camera lens barrel. Note they have the same exact shape as one of the white bolts, just a color shift.

[Evildead666]

[Evildead666]

[Evildead666]

those are reflection/refractions inside the camera lens barrel. Note they have the same exact shape as one of the white bolts, just a color shift.

The first frame has no lightning, just the yellow bolt.

edit : Maybe it caught a bolt just off to the right, you can see a slight glow as if there was something off camera.
Strange it only did it on that lightning bolt though.

you got the vid working then ?

[degrub]

yep. cool video. Not sure i would have stayed outside.

[Evildead666]

The vid looks a lot better than the pics since you get a sense of the order of the images, and the duration.

On the next vid, you can see the lightning bolt one frame, then it goes dull, then its back again, then its dull, as if it was fluctuating in intensity, over 3 or 4 frames.

edit :I climbed onto the railing of the balcony to get a better view of the fields out back, but with the rail being wet and the wind gusting a bit, I got down, couldn't see much more than just standing on the balcony.

[Evildead666]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EB4NWO34

This ones only 2s long, so you will have to pause it straight away, and go step by step.
There are two lightning bolts that I managed to pop into one tiny file.

[Evildead666]

I'll pop another vid up tomorrow from 18th April 2004, where I have 4 lightning flash's on it.
I would have had more but I left Autofocus on and a lot of them were blurred. It was pitch black after all.
I learned from that for this time.

Its gonna take an hour or so to encode from the Samsung format to x264, and then prob 30s to encode when chopped up. I have to sleep though right now.

[Evildead666]

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZBNVEIHP

691K and 4 lightning flash's.

As before, you'll be able to see more detail on a frame by frame basis.

enjoy.