You might have the fastest fingers in your photography circle, but if there’s one thing every photographer struggles with capturing, it’s photos of lightning. Aiming to simplify this challenge for you is the new Bolt Hunter trigger by photographer Jeff Boyce.
It’s A Tricky Genre
If you’ve ever tried photographing lightning before, you know it’s a game of wait and watch. Mostly waiting though. It’s never something you can time, given how short lightning durations are. Yes, there’s the option of having your shutter open for longer periods of time, and use an intervalometer to keep repeating this, but that inevitably ends up leading to a lot of wasted files. The folks at Motion Horizons LLC have created the Bolt Hunter, a camera trigger that aims to solve the problems of over-exposed lighting shots at night and missed lightning shots in the day, by doing something different from existing similar products. The Bolt Hunter doesn’t react to brightness changes – it claims to analyze lightning in real time by detecting activity in the skies. Accordingly, it compensates for shutter lag and synchronizes the timing for a perfect lightning shot every time.
What’s Different About Bolt Hunter
Founder Jeff Boyce realized that existing lightning triggers were mostly jack-of-all-trades devices. The Bolt Hunter is purely focused on helping you deliver exceptional lightning photos time after time. He claims that, unlike other triggers today, this product is meant to work in dynamic ambient light and can measure your camera’s shutter lag in order to accurately offset this while taking lightning pictures. Normally, when you shoot in Bulb mode, you risk repeated lightning strokes overexposing the photo; Bolt Hunter’s Night Mode works the other way round.
Technical Compatibility
Jeff says the Bolt Hunter is compatible with almost all modern cameras in the market today. You can use standard camera connectivity cables you may have, and in the off chance that your camera doesn’t support this (like the Canon R50), you can use Bluetooth for triggering (it’ll be interesting to see if it compensates for Bluetooth lag in real time). Weather-sealed to withstand even the heaviest rain showers, the Bolt Hunter features a rechargeable battery with a 48-hour runtime. It can be powered by a powerbank, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever drain it out that much, as it will also give users at least a 12-hour lead time with visual, audible, and push notification alerts before the battery dies
Some interesting features that set this product apart from other triggers are lightning simulation mode for testing when out in the field, the Bluetooth smartphone app for adjusting settings, and motion detection alerts in case the camera moves. In addition to this, the device has a built-in speaker for audible alerts.
Tested And Trusted
We haven’t received a unit yet, but Jeff has sent a few out in the field to notable professional photographers who have high praise for it, and say the Bolt Hunter is the best lightning trigger they’ve used, even saying that it’s a game-changer. We hope we can get a unit soon for our review and see how it performs. It definitely looks promising. Back it on Kickstarter today for a discounted price of USD 279 (expected MSRP $349)
Images shot using the Bolt Hunter can be seen below
Images seen in this article were provided for usage by Jeff Boyce from Motion Horizons LLC