AM or PM?

[bigredfish]

Quite the lightning show last night, this was one of the MD captures the DVR sent me via email. There may be a better frame but this one was close enough.

 

[TonyR]

Like 3:17 PM instead of 3:17 AM! Wow.

 

[bababouy]

Thats bright

 

[bigredfish]

Interesting note: When going through frame by frame, (these cams are set to 30FPS at 6144 bitrate), the flash itself takes up just 3 frames from beginning to end.

1/2 second later

 

[PapaBill]

Holy crap, I was looking at the first pic, going WHERES THE LIGHTNING! then saw the comment and the time and WOW!

 

[TonyR]

You know, I just noticed this about the first pic, under the time stamp: those trees across the street? ...no shadows!
The lightning is not only super bright, but it's like coming from all directions at once, flooding the scene with light.

Since I was a tiny boy I've always marveled at the majesty and the unequalled power of lightning....sure, it's just static electricity but Mother Nature (or our Creator, however you prefer) has again, as usual, done something than man can't even come close to in sheer power, enormity and impressiveness....IMO.

 

[J Sigmo]

I think the very smooth, even lighting from that lightning might be because it was a cloud-to-cloud discharge. A whole large area of the clouds overhead would act as an enormous "soft box" producing an eerie and amazingly uniform light source making for smooth illumination of a large area.

I wonder if this had been a cloud-to-ground stroke, if you'd see some stark shadows showing the direction to where the lightning struck.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

 

[TonyR]

I think the very smooth, even lighting from that lightning might be because it was a cloud-to-cloud discharge. A whole large area of the clouds overhead would act as an enormous "soft box" producing an eerie and amazingly uniform light source making for smooth illumination of a large area.

I wonder if this had been a cloud-to-ground stroke, if you'd see some stark shadows showing the direction to where the lightning struck.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

Yeah, who really knows.....lightning still amazes me. And you can still see reflections of the street lighting on the wet roadway, too.

Reminds me of how it seemed like, 30 or 40 years ago when I'd upgrade a room's work lighting from incandescent to fluorescent, that the fluorescent would ever-so-slightly creep around corners and under overhangs to remove shadows that would be there when the old incandescent lighting was in use. Maybe it was my imagination.

 

[J Sigmo]

Not your imagination. The fluorescent tubes are long. The light comes from a large area rather than more of a "point source" as you get with the much smaller incandescent bulb.

This reduces shadows tremendously.

Think about two scenarios:

A sunny cloudless day, and a totally overcast day.

On the cloudless, sunny day, you will cast a distinct shadow because the light is coming from an almost perfect point source. The "rays" of light are almost perfectly parallel to each other as they reach the earth. So other than the diffraction that happens at the very edges of you (or anything else casting a shadow), the light is almost totally blocked by your body, so the shadow is sharp and distinct.

But on a day with heavy cloud cover, the sun's light does not reach the earth directly. It is diffused and re-radiated by the clouds. So the light reaching the earth is coming from the entire sky very uniformly. The clouds are now the light source, and they're everywhere.

So you don't cast any visible shadow at all.

The long fluorescent tubes are like this, sending light out from their entire length. This makes working under the fluorescents much nicer for many tasks, because you don't cast a distinct shadow that can often end up being right where you're trying to work, or look.

Doing drafting, or crafts, or assembly work, it is really nice to have smooth lighting coming from a variety of directions, as if working outside on a cloudy day.

It's the same for photography. You'll see photographers aiming their flash units up to bounce off of the ceiling, or using a flash "umbrella" or a diffuser or soft-box to get away from the point-source of the bare, direct flash which will cast sharp, distinct, annoying shadows. The larger the effective light source is, with respect to the subject, the smoother the lighting will be.

Diffuse light is often very desirable.

 

[TonyR]

Makes sense!

 

[TechBill]

It's look like someone just turn on an overhead 5K LED strip

We installed a 5K strip ceiling lamp in our kitchen and that thing is like super bright making everything show it true color. Even the dirt and grimes are clearly visible on our countertop and table which we would had never noticed it with an fluorescent tubes.

 

[TonyR]

It's look like someone just turn on an overhead 5K LED strip

We installed a 5K strip ceiling lamp in our kitchen and that thing is like super bright making everything show it true color. Even the dirt and grimes are clearly visible on our countertop and table which we would had never noticed it with an fluorescent tubes.

Two years ago I retrofitted the 4 each 40 watt 4 ft. tubes in the kitchen with 4 each 18 watt 4000K (daylight glow) LED's...man! What a difference! The wife is very pleased as she has macular degeneration (and I've got old eyes). They're the ballast bypass type (not plug n' play) but the wiring is so simple to modify. Worth the effort!