Storm Before the Podcast Episode 6: The Bolt Hunter with Jeff Boyce

In Episode 6, I interview Bolt Hunter developer Jeff Boyce about this exciting new tool for storm chasers and photographers.  Jeff is releasing the Bolt Hunter ( bolthunter.io ) via Kickstarter, and he shares how this passion project of his was designed and tested by storm chasers over many seasons  to help them capture more lightning photos than ever before.  

keywords

lightning photography, storm chasing, Bolt Hunter, photography equipment, weather photography, monsoon storms, photography tips, storm photography community, lightning capture technology, Jeff Boyce

summary

In this episode of the Storm Before the Calm podcast, host Lori Grace Bailey interviews lightning photographer Jeff Boyce about his innovative device, the Bolt Hunter, designed to capture lightning strikes more effectively. They discuss the challenges faced by storm chasers, the technical aspects of the Bolt Hunter, and the importance of community feedback in its development. Jeff shares insights on safety while storm chasing, the future of the device, and the excitement surrounding its upcoming launch.

takeaways

• Jeff Boyce has been storm chasing for over 15 years.
• The Bolt Hunter device aims to improve lightning photography.
• Common issues in lightning photography include missed shots and equipment failures.
• User feedback is crucial for improving photography devices.
• Pre-capture technology has limitations in capturing lightning.
• Safety is paramount when storm chasing; staying inside a vehicle is recommended.
• The storm photography community is supportive and collaborative.
• The Bolt Hunter is designed specifically for lightning, unlike other triggers.
• The device will be available for backing on Kickstarter soon.
• Jeff emphasizes the importance of location in capturing great storm shots.

titles

• Capturing Lightning: The Bolt Hunter Revolution
• Overcoming Challenges in Lightning Photography

Sound Bites

• "I broke your device."
• "This isn't just another trigger."
• "It's all about location."

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to Lightning Photography and New Innovations

04:07
Challenges in Lightning Photography

10:56
Introducing the Bolt Hunter Device

15:29
Understanding Lightning and Trigger Technology

20:56
The Importance of Shutter Lag

26:34
Real-World Testing and Feedback

29:17
Chasing Haboobs: A Surprising Encounter

30:36
The Science of Lightning Photography

31:28
Pre-Capture Technology: A Game Changer?

35:26
Innovations in Camera Gear: The Evolution of Bolt Hunter

38:26
Designing for Durability: The Importance of Tough Gear

39:03
Battery Life and Charging Solutions for Photographers

46:39
The Excitement of New Technology in Storm Chasing

46:58
The Unique Features of the Bolt Hunter Trigger

49:00
The Importance of Reliability in Storm Photography

49:40
Testing the Device in Monsoon Conditions

51:13
Community Feedback and Improvement

52:58
The Role of Passion in Storm Chasing

55:02
Availability and Launch Plans for the Device

56:19
Innovative Features of the Bolt Hunter

59:41
Safety Considerations for Storm Chasers

01:01:15
The Personal Journey of a Storm Chaser

Transcript

Lori Grace Bailey (00:01)
Welcome back to the Storm Before the Calm podcast. I am your host, Lori Grace Bailey, and today I have a special guest If you are a lightning photographer, this podcast is definitely for you. You might have seen in a previous podcast how I actually showed you three different types of triggers and I tested them out in the field, but that was a good two years ago.

And I have an update here. I am here with my guest, Jeff Boyce. And Jeff is going to tell us how he got to this point to actually developing a brand new device that will it do better? We're going to talk about that right now. But first of all, a lot of people want to know who is Jeff Boyce and what is this new little box that's been on a few of us chasers over the last storm season, including monsoon.

You might have seen a couple of these, we were putting it to the test and I am so happy that ⁓ Jeff threw one at me to test and put it through the ringer. boy, did I put it through the ringer. Sorry, Jeff, I broke your device. welcome to the podcast, Jeff.

Jeff Boyce (01:09)
Thanks for having me. That's exactly why you gave to you. So that's awesome. Yeah. So I've been chasing for about 15 years now, 10, 15 years. And I guess I kind of stay on the quiet side of social media. I kind of pop up once a month or once a year for a month when I'm out there chasing and then I disappear for the rest of the year. But I originally kind of grew a passion for weather and lightning growing up and visiting family down in the South, in Alabama, Georgia.

And I was just in Amherst with lightning as ever since I was a little kid. And then that kind of eventually merged with when I got into photography, maybe about 20 years ago. And those two things came together and began going to the Sierra Nevada mountains in California and chasing the summer thunderstorms. And then also happened to have a grandma that used to live in Tucson. so that was like the highlight of every year was going to Tucson and seeing the monsoons.

Lori Grace Bailey (01:41)
Okay.

Hmm.

Right?

Jeff Boyce (02:03)
And

that was before I learned like more about weather and really gotten to the chasing, ⁓ hardcore chasing. then eventually ended up in the planes. And then I was chasing in the planes every year for about the last 10 years until the last two years. And then I decided lightning is going to focus. So I put everything on hold so I could really focus just on long zooms because there's nothing that can be Arizona for lightning.

Lori Grace Bailey (02:13)
Yeah.

Well, I'm a little biased. I'm not ashamed to admit that I do love the Arizona monsoon storms. I did spend a lot of time here in Texas, which is why the background looks a lot different. I'm still quite mobile for these last several months, but I was fortunate to try and shoot lightning in White Sands National Park, which is very difficult, by the way. It's really, really hard, and I tried day after day after day.

But I have some good results and I want to show them hopefully on the video portion of this podcast. I can show some of the results that I actually captured with this little gizmo here that you had loaned me to test out. actually caught lightning way off in the distance in the middle of the freaking day and I was able to capture something. how did you go from, hey man, I like to capture weather. I love getting out there.

and you like to get out there during the monsoons, what was the problem that you encountered? If you're a lightning photographer, it's a pretty universal problem, you finally get in front of this beautiful storm with a beautiful peak of a mountain or maybe saguaros, or a beautiful background, right? You finally compose your scene and you set up your camera and you miss the shot. You've either gotten there too late or your equipment

didn't work like it was supposed to. Maybe it's your fault because you forgot to put the SD card in. Maybe you forgot your batteries, you know? A lot of times these are human caused. But a lot of the times, Jeff, we've all pulled out our hair because the device didn't get the shot. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Jeff Boyce (04:07)
First off, super jealous because I tried it at the White Sands and not successfully.

Lori Grace Bailey (04:08)
you

Jeff Boyce (04:14)
only had a little bit of time out there and gave it a shot. Maybe got one distant one over some of the nearby mountains but not over the sand so that's awesome. Yes, mean failure is the most common result of storm chasing honestly so it's but if there's things that we can do to overcome that other than just luck and timing and location and you know the time it takes you to drive there then

awhile ago, I realized, Hey, there might be a little bit of room for improvement. then kind of went down that road and realized, there's a lot of room for improvement. So, you know, some of the things you talked about for equipment issues, you know, nine volt batteries. I've learned to hate them. you know, cause if the ones you have with you, you run out of those or you forget to pack them, and then you're trying to find a gas station that sells them and, and then having triggers that don't tell you.

Lori Grace Bailey (05:01)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Boyce (05:05)
Oh, is the night ball dead? Is there a reliable low battery indicator? Sometimes you put it in and everything looks like it's good. The lights are on and it's not triggering. And you're saying, what, what is going on? And then you realize, oh, it's actually a low battery. It's not dead. Um, things like that. Or for example, sunset, if it's too bright and some of these triggers don't work in sunlight. And, know, if you have the sun behind the storm, which is some of these really dramatic scenes, then some of the most difficult exposures to get, um, especially.

Lori Grace Bailey (05:08)
Right.

Yeah.

Right.

Absolutely.

Jeff Boyce (05:34)
With getting a long enough exposure time, but things like that, just having them fail right when you most need them. And then being able to deploy something quickly enough. And that's one of the biggest things that I kind of started with from the very beginning was I need to be able to get out my tripod, put the camera on it and not spend the time going up and down, unplugging the trigger cable from the camera to check my settings, to go back and forth.

Lori Grace Bailey (06:02)
⁓ yeah.

Jeff Boyce (06:03)
Then

you unplug it and that's when the shot happens. It's without fail. Whatever you do to check something or verify something, that's when the shots can happen. So there's just, you know, I've talked to so many chasers, you included, you've been one the best beta testers in person, people out there that gives me feedback. And, um, I mean, it's really been invaluable because.

Lori Grace Bailey (06:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

I was really honest about it. I'll tell you that, you know, when it missed, it missed and you set out to fix that, right? Like you needed that specific data. It missed at this miles while another one might've hit. Cause I had them, side by side and you know, if it missed, it missed. And I gave you that positive feedback or maybe it was negative feedback, it was a good feedback. But you immediately realized what...

what was happening.

So Jeff, know, over this last chase season through Monsoon, we had others besides myself like John Serlin, Connor Healy, Jim Tang, ⁓ who are incredible photographers in their own right and who consistently produce bangers.

And they all had a model that they were testing as well, right? What was the purpose of trying to get as many units as you can out there and try to get that kind of feedback?

Jeff Boyce (07:21)
Yeah. And you know, the reason I picked you guys is that group that you're in, ⁓ number one, you are part of that small group. That's always been, super easy to talk to and friendly and approachable online and in person. And the other part is that you're all much better photographers than i am. And especially with lightning. So that's, that's probably the most important thing. And then you all have tons of experience with, ⁓ triggers and everything.

Lori Grace Bailey (07:45)
This is the guy who has

bolts landing on the half dome, by the way, mind you. all those, if you take a look at the Bolt Hunter website, huh?

Jeff Boyce (07:51)
Let me tell you why. Let me

both of those things, uh, you know, it may have been my camera, but Jim Tang is responsible for both of those because both those times I let Jim talk me into going when I probably wouldn't have done it if it was just me. And, know, he's like, has these, this insane forecasting skills and you know,

Lori Grace Bailey (08:07)
Wow.

⁓ Absolutely, Jim's

the best.

Jeff Boyce (08:13)
Yes. And Yosemite, he

saw going and, and he was at a different viewpoint. ended up going all the way to the top and it was just total luck that it happened. It was actually with Bolt Hunter that ⁓ we got that. ⁓ yeah.

Lori Grace Bailey (08:23)
No kidding. That

must have been a really early unit then.

Jeff Boyce (08:27)
It was, it was, um, but that's how long, you know, I've been working on this. So, then the, the Anza Borrego shots from Founts Point. That was another one where Jim and I were in Arizona and it was my last day. This was this year and I'd had a pretty underwhelming year in Arizona. I was, you know, only had a very limited time period of a couple of weeks that I could be down there. And, um, of course, monsoon picked up as soon as I left, but you know, we were, uh, we had,

Gone west from Phoenix and then I was talking to Jim about like hey, there's There's a chance for something in Borrego overnight like maybe like 5 a.m Do we want to do we want to give it a shot or should I just hit on home and? We end up driving all night staying up all night long Jim fell asleep in my passenger seat when we got there and then I saw you know echoes pop up on radar I'm like, oh it's happening get up and Sure enough. That was that was the shot that made the trip. It was on the last day

Lori Grace Bailey (09:03)
crazy.

Maybe I can share those here in the post-edits. I might be able to drop a couple of those images in. I'd love to see if you could share that half dome shot with me and the ants of Origo, because sunrise and ants, mean, probably thunders there probably once, a couple of times a year, right? ⁓ So to be there at sunrise with lightning, man, you

Jeff Boyce (09:41)
Yeah.

You know, the half dome shot was

actually a frame in a time lapse. Yeah.

Lori Grace Bailey (09:50)
okay.

So we're gonna get into that. Was your Bolt Hunter set to a time lapse feature, by the way? So it was triggering and... ⁓ man, that's awesome. I have a...

Jeff Boyce (09:56)
was, it was, so it caught the bolt

between two intervals that were five seconds apart, I believe.

Lori Grace Bailey (10:04)
it captured the bolt in between the five second interval shots. Fantastic.

Jeff Boyce (10:08)
It did. It was actually

one of three or four bolts, but it was the best one.

Lori Grace Bailey (10:14)
Wow. So you've got even more shots that you never shared. You're a stingy person.

Jeff Boyce (10:17)
Yeah.

Yeah. Only the best.

Lori Grace Bailey (10:22)
Well, that's awesome. And I know a lot of people are watching this because they want to know. In fact, I put out on a couple of my social media channels, I put out over this past couple of days, if you have a question for Jeff, throw it out, throw it here. Jeff's willing to answer any questions about this because it's an exciting thing, right? It's an exciting gadget because people who actually chase storms know the frustration of trying to capture lightning.

There is no trigger that captures 100 % of bolts 100 % of the time. And I think we need to talk about that too.

So I actually had one person send a question of, is it live yet? Is it live yet? Is it live yet? And this guy obviously is really, really desperate to change his game up. Can you talk about the Bolt Hunter? Let's get into that, the unit itself and why you decided to craft this and how it came about.

Jeff Boyce (11:02)
I'm

Lori Grace Bailey (11:16)
and why it's different. Everybody that I've talked to over the past several days are all saying the same thing. It's just another one. There are at least what, six that I could name that I won't name here, but at least six ⁓ lightning capturing devices out there that you can slap on top of your camera. All I can say is I have used, there's a few of them and I won't name names that will make you throw the unit across the.

across the street when you try using these things. They are junk, they're worse than buying them, they're worse than machine gunning the shots. At least that's been my experience. I ended up giving them to somebody else because they said that they wanted it anyway. I felt bad giving it away. And then I've also had some success and some really good success as you saw. Some of these others that are out there do produce good results and I've been able

you know, to become a really great lightning photographer, thanks in part to these devices working when they're supposed to. The nine volt battery thing, I should invest in either Duracell or Energizer at this point, with the amount of nine volts that I have spent over the years replacing those things into the unit. So let's get into that real quick. Why did you think that you needed to do something different with Bolt Hunter? And can you tell us a little bit why it's different?

Jeff Boyce (12:37)
Sure. So, you know, the project came up, kind of came about, um, I guess I just kind of have an engineer mind where I look at something and I think, how could I fix this or how could I improve it? And sometimes it's not even obvious that there needs to be something done. then the more I did chasing and storm photography and lightning photography, the more I saw some of these complaints out here time and time again, um, with the triggers on the market. And, um, you know, one of my.

goals. One of my bucket list shots is I want that close range daytime lightning strike of a tree or something, some object, and I'm trying to figure out what is the most reliable way to do this. And so I went down the rabbit hole of how does lightning really work? I realized that when I started looking at the way triggers work and designing my own trigger,

I realized I needed to learn about lightning before I could do anything else.

Jeff Boyce (13:38)
So before going down the road of building a trigger, I really realized that I needed to understand the problem before trying to solve it. So I started by building some data collection devices that record optical data of near infrared lag and infrared lag at an extremely high frame rate. So we're talking about a hundred thousand or more frames per second or samples per second.

And I did this for about three years while chasing and it allowed me to do something that you can't do with high speed video of lightning. You know, have Dustin Farrell out there recording these incredible thousand frame per second shots of lightning, which, shows you a lot of how it works. lets you see it, but you can't do a hundred thousand frames per second. So what I was doing was recording that. then that just gives you this insight into what is actually happening. That is so much faster than we can actually perceive.

Lori Grace Bailey (14:01)
Okay.

Jeff Boyce (14:30)
I would look at a strike and say, was just a single flash. And then you look at it and it was, no, there was actually a inter cloud flash before the stepped leaders. And then the stepped leaders occurred and then you have the first return stroke and then you had two other returns. But that all looked like a single flash to me. And if, if I had a trigger on my camera and it went off and I missed the bolt, I would have, and always did think that, it wasn't fast enough. And then once I did this, I realized.

Sometimes the opposite is true. Triggers are actually too fast because depending on your exposure speed, your exposure is going to land in between return strokes. And that happens really often when you shoot at, you know, one 30th or faster. And if you have a super high frame rate camera, like the A1, I know you mentioned it shoots in 30 frames a second. Then yeah, you could hammer them and you're, you're going to get lucky, ⁓ much more often shooting at those slower speeds.

Lori Grace Bailey (15:10)
Right.

Mm-hmm. Right.

Jeff Boyce (15:29)
But this gave me another idea, which is what, you know, this is, it's just a math problem really. And we're missing some variables. And some of those things are how far apart of the return strokes occurring? How long does the camera take to respond? How quickly can we take pictures back to back? So Bolt Hunter isn't just for, it's not just for triggering the camera.

Lori Grace Bailey (15:36)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Boyce (15:51)
And it's not just for seeing lightning and telling the camera to take a picture because all the other triggers, they're just, I mean, they do it blind and they, they work great for the most part, but they're, they're not doing it intelligently. would say. So the approach that I decided to take is completely different where now we're actually measuring your camera's shutter lag and you're measuring your camera's, frame rate or lockout period. So if you.

Lori Grace Bailey (15:57)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Jeff Boyce (16:20)
are sending a signal to the camera to take a picture. You know, we all know that if you shot lighting before the shutter speed is the enemy of lightning strikes of getting them on, getting shots of lightning. And you know, on this, this is the Sony A7R5 and a lot of trigger manufacturers previously I've seen recommend shooting in shutter priority mode, which makes sense because you could set it to, you know, one 25th or...

Lori Grace Bailey (16:29)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Jeff Boyce (16:47)
Somewhere

around there that might be successful normally and let it handle the aperture and the ISO speed so that, you know, as clouds come in front of the sun, it gets lighter, darker, everything stays consistent. But on this camera, what Bolt understood me was that the shutter lag and shutter priority mode is 120 milliseconds. It's over a 10th of second. And if I just turn that to aperture priority or manual mode, it's 25 milliseconds. That was the difference between, yeah, I mean.

Lori Grace Bailey (16:56)
Sure.

Wow.

Jeff Boyce (17:16)
So many lightning events are done in 120 milliseconds. So things like that, then going back to what I said about missing the variables in this equation. So if we know the, if we know the shutter lag of your camera, the, one of the things we don't know is when the next return stroke is going to be.

Lori Grace Bailey (17:17)
Right.

Jeff Boyce (17:37)
But we recorded so much data preparing for this that we found that return strokes are actually more or less consistent. And there was a range that they fall within, you know, 90 % of the time. But if you have a return stroke and then you tell the trader tells the camera, take a picture. Well, what bolt hunter is doing is while the camera is taking that picture, it's still watching and it's waiting for the next return stroke.

Lori Grace Bailey (17:39)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff Boyce (18:02)
The next return stroke is going to fall during that exposure. Let's be clear, like no, almost no trigger is going to catch the first return stroke occasionally. And I think bolt hunter is positioned to do that as well or better than any other trigger on the market by catching those like really faint inter cloud flashes that sometimes happen before a strike. But those really pesky ones with a single return stroke bolts are the ones that the trigger miss.

Lori Grace Bailey (18:05)
Okay.

Right?

Hmm. All right.

Yeah,

exactly. But at the same time, for what it's worth, I was pretty upset that they all missed it, by the way. That was what I was experiencing. was like, okay, this missed it, this and these others missed it too. Why are all these cameras missing it? And how can you dial that in? How can you get that? For the record, by the way, I always shoot in manual, by the way. So I think I was doing the right thing because I've always been, everything I've read has always talked about shutter priority.

Jeff Boyce (18:51)
Yes.

Lori Grace Bailey (18:55)
I just don't like shutter priority. For me, I actually come from the perspective of like a portrait photographer, using off-camera flash. If you've ever used off-camera flash, that's a great experience of trying to learn how to shoot lightning. Because lightning is...

either a really bright bulb or it's a not bright bulb and learning how to expose your shutter, your ambient, right? Learning how to get this cool ambient and then working in your flash and adjusting for the flash through the aperture. I think that's why I've always shot in manual, but I don't want to get sidetracked too much. So you're saying I've been doing the right thing by shooting in manual this whole time, ever since I've been shooting lightning. I mean, maybe it's helped me.

Jeff Boyce (19:41)
You know, I would say, maybe

I would say it depends on the camera. And the only way you're going to know that is if you can actually measure your individual camera. Cause it's not publicized, you know, in technical specs for someone who doesn't put out, Hey, in every mode, is the shutter lag you're going to believe it or not, your shutter lag actually changes a little bit between every single photo. And it might have variations between individual cameras of the same model. That's something that we.

Lori Grace Bailey (19:46)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Now, I

do hear and I've heard a lot of people talking about shutter lag when you announced Bolt Hunter this past week. A few days ago, people have been hitting me up. How is this going to resolve that? you know, people are saying, well, it can only do so much because my camera shutter lag is terrible, right? ⁓ Someone that we both know, someone that contacted you talked about their Nikon.

What is it, Z1 or a Z3 or I forgot what it was. There's one particular Nikon. Anything that I sent her, she could still not get her camera to really work. And I've heard other people using Nikon cameras and they just did just fine. But I think that varies. And so you're resolving one of the issues. How are you using Bolt Hunter to

look at that camera's shutter lag and use that as part of the equation.

Jeff Boyce (21:02)
Yeah, so it was the Nikon Z6, which I haven't used, but she was telling me that it has notoriously long shutter lag. So I would...

Lori Grace Bailey (21:05)
Z6.

⁓ nothing I gave her or

helped her at all whatsoever.

Jeff Boyce (21:14)
Well, hopefully this will, you know, lets you measure the shutter lag and you can go through all your settings and do it repeatedly until you dial in the best possible setting. But even if it's long or longer than you'd like it to be, I think that this will be able to take that into account and have you, allow you to get much better success than you would with a standard trigger that just fires immediately. And the way that works is it's always going to fire immediately for the first shot.

because we don't know if there's gonna be only one return stroke. We don't want to make any decisions before we have another data point. So it'll fire immediately the first time and it's gonna continue measuring the lag as the lightning event happens. So while your camera's taking the picture, it's gonna be waiting for that second return stroke. When that second return stroke happens, it's gonna calculate the time between those in milliseconds, microseconds, these tiny amounts of time.

And it's going decide based on that and the data we've collected and the equations and algorithms that we built into this, that if there's going to be a third one, which very often there is, sometimes there's 12 return strokes, that this is when we think it's going to be. And we're going to use the shutter lag and the camera lockout time that Bolt Hunter measures. And it'll say, is it possible to catch the next return stroke if we fire immediately when this exposure is done?

And if the answer is no, then we're actually going to wait for the fourth one and we're going to build in a delay. So what I've been calling it is buffered triggering where it's basically doing some math and deciding when to trigger while it's already triggering. And then when that exposure is done, maybe it means waiting a little bit when normally you could have already taken another picture, but for the best chance of success to center that exposure on the bolt.

Lori Grace Bailey (22:45)
Mm-hmm.

That's so fast.

Jeff Boyce (23:04)
even if you had super long shutter lag, it's gonna wait and then trigger later. And that's how we're approaching the whole, it's sometimes too fast, not too slow issue.

Lori Grace Bailey (23:13)
You

show that on the website, right? You show that example. And by the way, the lightning that you're capturing happens to be just behind Elephant Head, really popular over the Santa Rita Mountains, south of Tucson. Iconic, some of my favorite areas to chase lightning especially. And this was, looked like a sunset shot, but you could see the step leaders and all of that. I actually had someone who had this question. I think it's pretty similar. Actually, I think it's right on the money as well. Someone had asked the question, the big issue,

Jeff Boyce (23:22)
Thank you.

Lori Grace Bailey (23:42)
I have had with other triggers other than false triggers and not triggering at all is that most of the time my trigger misses the initial lightning stroke that has the branching and just picks up on the subsequent return strokes based on the test images captured with this device. I assume the bolt hunter is different. How often does it pick up on that first return stroke with the majority of the branching and what is triggering it early? The initial cloud discharge and or the stepped leader.

lastly, he asked the same thing about does the shutter lag make a difference in the results? So I think he's dialed into what you're talking about here. I don't know the complexity as much as you two do, but it sounds like you guys are speaking of the same problems that these devices encounter. Is that right on the money there?

Jeff Boyce (24:31)
Yeah, his, his question definitely tells me whoever wrote that knows what they're talking about with lightning. And that's absolutely true is that it's super difficult to get the first return stroke. Now, one of the things that we built this for was to give us the very best chance of detecting the intro cloud flashes before the stepped leaders.

Lori Grace Bailey (24:35)
Right.

Jeff Boyce (24:50)
And in my experience, and during all this data collection we did, is really, really difficult to actually detect the step leaders. They're just not bright enough and at least not in daytime or unless they're super close range. And even if you did detect one of the small flashes in the step leaders, a lot of times the time between you detect that and the first return stroke isn't long enough for your shutter lag. And you're still going to start your photo afterwards. So.

One of the ways we actually tested this is, uh, this isn't on the website yet. one's no one's seeing very few people have seen this is we built something, uh, called the, I call the lightning shutter. What that is is I built an auxiliary shutter that goes on a mirrorless camera between the camera body and a DSLR lens. And what I did last year is I shot.

Lori Grace Bailey (25:23)
⁓

Jeff Boyce (25:46)
30 second long exposures in the middle of daytime. And I opened my own shutter, which opened in 1.8 milliseconds versus the fastest shutter lag I've ever seen is 15, 20. Usually there's a couple that may be faster, but even with that.

Lori Grace Bailey (25:59)
Holy smoke.

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Boyce (26:08)
You know, what we found is that if there's no intra cloud flash or the step leaders aren't bright enough, or they're not against the dark enough sky and they're not close enough, then even with the best sensor in the world, you're still going to miss that first return stroke. 90 % of the flighting shots that are taking the triggers are second, third, fourth return strokes. Sometimes you're getting multiple of them. get the second and the third one. So, you know, we did.

Lori Grace Bailey (26:21)
Right.

Right?

By the way, I've had

one trigger and it was same company, but I've used many of those devices and this one particular device always only gave me sticks. Does that make sense? The little, just a stick. It wouldn't give me the branches. Most of the time I ended up not using it. So I don't know what the deal was on that.

Jeff Boyce (26:54)
The little wispy bolts are the worst because you may have this amazing scene and this massive bolt that came down with branching filament leaders on both sides, maybe even in multiple places, multiple channels. And then your photo is a tiny little stick that you can barely see against the sky. So some of the testers that have had it this year, you know,

Lori Grace Bailey (26:56)
Mm-hmm. Great.

Mm-hmm. Right. Okay.

Jeff Boyce (27:19)
One was a Rob Galucci who's down near you. He used it pretty extensively over near the, Huachucas And he was telling me that he was using it side by side with a couple of other brands. And he was consistently getting branches on bolt Hunter that the others weren't. Which is positive news. I would say that that's a sign that some of the stuff we're doing to try and detect those things are working. I wouldn't, ⁓ I wouldn't say that.

Lori Grace Bailey (27:21)
Mm-hmm. yeah, yeah.

Jeff Boyce (27:46)
I have the data that I can back that up with yet and that's going to be next year that I'm take this out with the latest firmware, which really came at the tail end of monsoon season. However, I did use this side by side with a couple of the other most popular triggers a ton this year.

Lori Grace Bailey (27:57)
Yeah.

Jeff Boyce (28:06)
I don't think it ever missed one that the others got, but I did see it get one or two that the others missed. And I've had a few people give me some examples of that and I did get a ton of branching bolts. So some more, more to come on that with the latest firmware because completely re-amped everything the way that these work since August when I was out there shooting.

Lori Grace Bailey (28:21)
Yeah.

You,

met up with you somewhere near Wilcox. think that day we were, we were both trying to squeeze as much as we could out of the monsoon. That was not really doing too much at the time, but you threw out a, you immediately pressed out a, or sent out a firmware update and I was able to download it using my phone, put it right onto the unit and it fixed the problem that I had was encountering.

You showed me by the way you actually I met up with you and I think you had just was it the day before you had already you had been chased by a giant Haboob that had chased you that was a downed Douglas or something like that It was it was in crazy. You never even shared that that experience by the way. Oh portal portal. Yeah, and By the way, I hope to see that footage someday because it looked like It looked like ghost writers were were yeah, we're trying or chasing you down. It was incredible

Jeff Boyce (28:56)
Yeah.

It was in the portal. Yeah.

I'll see you.

Lori Grace Bailey (29:17)
But getting back.

Jeff Boyce (29:17)
I'll send you a clip of that.

I was actually, the only reason I was over there was I was over with Connor Healy and we were just going for the Hail Mary bolts at Portal. And then at one point Connor looks behind us. He's like, Hey Zach, is that dust? I'm like, I think so. It does look kind of brown. So we climbed up on my roof so we could see over the hill. like, that's a haboob It just completely snuck up on us. And it was.

Lori Grace Bailey (29:23)
Okay, right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jeff Boyce (29:44)
I think we were a couple of the only ones that got that particular one because everyone else was chasing the areas that were smarter to chase. just got lucky. Not with lighting, but with.

Lori Grace Bailey (29:51)
think it came out of the,

I think that Haboob came out of the Gila out in Western New Mexico, the Gila forest and well, outflows from those storms and then marched down towards Portal. Yeah, that was fantastic. But this isn't the podcast about Haboobs. We're going to get there eventually because boy was last year or this year, I should say, the year of the Haboob, that's for sure. ⁓ So I actually saw the gear that you were using.

Jeff Boyce (29:56)
us.

Thank

Lori Grace Bailey (30:18)
it looked like something in a college class, In an electronics college class or an engineering college class in the lab. And it looked like oscilloscopes were in there and all sorts of weird stuff. that's called. Yeah. And it was measuring, it was measuring all of that stuff.

Jeff Boyce (30:30)
just like that. think there's one on, one right behind me over

there. Yeah. Yeah.

Lori Grace Bailey (30:36)
Is that the one or is that one of them? Holy cow.

So, you I know that you were were measuring this. This is this is about science, right? This is about narrowing that down. What about precapture? You know, I keep hearing, hey, the latest. don't I don't need a trigger because I have precapture. know John, Mr. Sirlin himself, his answer was, that's great. But if you're like me and you're on top of a hill.

and you set that camera up, you don't want to be sitting at the top when you're getting those short bolts. You want to be able to, if your camera takes a bolt to the dome, that's one thing. If you take a bolt to the dome, that's another problem. Also, and I think Connor also mentioned, like myself, I'm usually rocking three cameras trying to shoot for lightning, one for time lapse, two for lightning, or sometimes, you know, any mix of that. So, but what about precapture? What about that one person that just wants to,

I saw lightning push the button down. How is that going to factor into Bolt Hunter?

Jeff Boyce (31:34)
Great question. So let me start this with saying there's, there's so much packed into this thing. It's going to be a little hard to cover everything. ⁓ that is one of the exciting things because I've heard people say, triggers are going to be obsolete. These cameras coming out with global shutters and pre-capture. Now you just stand there and press the button or you use a trigger and let it, let it trigger. And then you go back and you have a photo afterwards. So if you use the mobile app and you.

Lori Grace Bailey (31:41)
Yeah.

Jeff Boyce (32:00)
go into your camera configuration, which you can store so that you could have a, uh, this setup for a particular camera. So if you shoot two or three cameras, you can actually name a bolt hunter. One of them, if you have to be able to name one for one camera and it would save the configuration for that camera. There is an option for pre-caption and it's designed for it. So you can add a delay so that you wait. Yeah. So you wait so that you're not just maybe capturing that first return stroke.

Lori Grace Bailey (32:20)
Hmm. that's cool.

Jeff Boyce (32:29)
But you're actually going to capture the entire bolt in multiple photos because how many, you know, how many times have you seen where sometimes the first return stroke isn't the photogenic one. A lot of times it's the branchy one. it, if it just has a channel that hits in the same place, but a lot of times you have these compound bolts where it's the first one and then it branches off into like three other bolts that hit different areas all at the same time.

Lori Grace Bailey (32:34)
yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

Mm-hmm. I

get that all the time. And I usually don't end up sharing any of the three usually. Like I might share something, but it's...

Jeff Boyce (33:00)
So, yeah, so pre-capture is, it's meant to work with pre-capture to make it so that it is designed for it and should give you a better chance of success of multiple shots. So you have the best to choose from, or if you have, you know, thin wispy bolts for some reason, you could potentially stack those and actually get a brighter one. ⁓ the other thing is

Lori Grace Bailey (33:00)
For me, it's trash. Like, I don't know.

Okay.

Jeff Boyce (33:26)
Precapture with some cameras is really clunky still. I don't know if you've, I've used it little bit and some of them you have to go through this complex menu and go through and like hundreds of shots to pick the one you want. It's slow, it's clunky, the software doesn't work very well. It's not like you just pull them into Lightroom for a lot of these.

Lori Grace Bailey (33:30)
yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Only JPEG

as well, think for Nikon currently is JPEG. I'm sure that that's being worked on, but.

Jeff Boyce (33:49)
Maybe

I'd imagine I'm sure these are any better over the years, but it's not a, it's a labor intensive process. And it's not like the end all be all because you still have a lockout time between shots. You're not just, it's not a continuous buffer where you can then, this is my understanding, at least at the ones on the market right now is that it's not a continuous buffer that you can choose the exposure and then stop it right at the perfect time.

Lori Grace Bailey (33:53)
Definitely.

Mm.

Jeff Boyce (34:17)
It sounds like what's on the market right now is it takes a exposure here and then exposure here and exposure here. And you can still miss things in between those. So as these come out and then they get better, this will get better to work with them. But it's to work for it, but it's also made because a lot of us don't have the funds for a global shutter pre-capture. ⁓

Lori Grace Bailey (34:26)
Right.

Right. ⁓ I'd love

the, a nine. it the three or the four that's out right now? The Sony a nine is global shutter. You know, if anyone wants to send me a brand new, you know, sponsor me Sony and type of thing, be more than happy to do that. So this is an old one, right? The one I'm holding here is so you can see that it doesn't look like what he has. And by the way, I, I'm really tough on, I broke off the, but this was a, an early model and I broke it cause I'm

Jeff Boyce (34:46)
Yep.

Yes, yes.

Lori Grace Bailey (35:07)
clumsy as heck. But yours is different. That looks like a pretty solid connection.

Jeff Boyce (35:13)
Yeah, so the ⁓

Lori Grace Bailey (35:14)
What's different

and how did we go from this iteration to where you're at now where you're going into a release mode? You wouldn't sell this, but that's what we're going into with that.

Jeff Boyce (35:26)
Yeah, so a bunch of different things. The shoe was kind of the weak point of those, but that's because it was 3D printed. And, you know, I printed a bunch of those for some preliminary testing. Those were FDM 3D printed. So layer by layer by layer. This one is a SLS printed. So it's...

Lori Grace Bailey (35:32)
Right, right.

Jeff Boyce (35:45)
laser center, it's much stronger, but this is still not the production version. The production version will be injection molding, which is what we're in the final stages of ⁓ doing right now. So I should have samples for those shortly here. That'll probably be even stronger because it's going to be polycarbonate. So yeah, I broke those two because our, know, when, we're chasing and it's like, time to go.

Lori Grace Bailey (36:02)
cool.

Jeff Boyce (36:10)
It always happens where you you wait until the last second, gotta go. So you have this thing on the tripod and you throw it in your, your back seat or your bed or your truck, whatever it is. And it's going to rest on it right there. And it's going to hit on it. It's going land like this. And the idea is that this has to be tough or like yours, it has to break and be easy to fix.

Lori Grace Bailey (36:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Right. Mine was on a

small rig cage, by the way. So usually I have a... Because I'm clumsy and ⁓ several haboops have knocked over my cameras and I've cried and had to call my wife and tell her, I'm sorry, I dropped the camera and I've lost $5,000 in gear and had to send it back in and But small.

Jeff Boyce (36:45)
you

Well, I'll just show you something like that.

Lori Grace Bailey (36:53)
Small rib cage,

you know, I highly recommend getting a metal cage around that thing. And usually right now I just, shot the Geminids last night. So I just had it like this, but usually it's in a cage. And so when that trigger was up there, yeah, I put it through some brutal, brutal mode there.

Jeff Boyce (37:13)
So last year I had a cage, or I didn't have a cage, I had a handle, a shoe handle on this. I actually put on it thinking it would protect the camera if it fell. And the camera did fall and...

Lori Grace Bailey (37:19)
Mm-hmm.

That's painful.

Jeff Boyce (37:28)
a hole,

so we don't want that to happen if it falls with the trigger. So the, the small little shoe should snap off if that happens before it breaks your camera. But here's the, here's the reason I designed it this way is because just send you another one. It's It's just, yeah, easy. And in fact, I was thinking that these would be super inexpensive and just available for sale with it. So if you want to grab an extra one in case, ⁓

Lori Grace Bailey (37:31)
Right.

Right.

a plate. ⁓ you just replace it. ⁓ hallelujah.

Dude,

Jeff Boyce (37:56)
I don't think they're going to be.

Lori Grace Bailey (37:57)
let it snap off and then fix it, fix it and get back in the game. I can't tell you how many other devices I have. They're all broken and they're supposed to, right? You want them to break off so that the least costly unit piece or piece breaks off. I understood that's why the other ones were developed like that. I was frustrated, but we've all used the tape. We all use the, you know, the other little attachments or Velcro, you you just put some, we all make it work, but.

Jeff Boyce (38:02)
Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Lori Grace Bailey (38:26)
those things break off like crazy and that's a great way to do it. Just pop it off, put a new one in and you're back in the game without crying back to Jeff and making a phone call, please help me in the middle of chase season and my unit, I can't mount it correctly somehow.

Jeff Boyce (38:43)
was going say, I really don't believe in like holding replacement parts or things you need hostage at a high cost. Like that's one the things with the, yeah, it's,

Lori Grace Bailey (38:52)
What about this, buddy? Ooh. I don't,

Jeff Boyce (38:56)
I know if you have tons of these and you bought them on Amazon and they're gonna work

Lori Grace Bailey (39:03)
So Jeff, we were talking about these darn things that have, I have spent...

way too much money on these things because you know that yeah they're they're a breaking point right you don't know that until you plug your cameras in and then if you don't have a spare one you are out of luck by the way this is not one that i bought or that came with the bolt hunter in fact you didn't send me one when you send me a test device i just grabbed one that i had handy somewhere else and i plugged it in and it worked so

It's not proprietary. Is any of the other stuff of this in this unit proprietary as far as that's concerned? Because the connection, how do we charge this up? Do I have to buy a special cable to charge the sucker up? Like darn it, I can't charge it now because it's enclosed.

Jeff Boyce (39:52)
Yeah, no, it's the whole idea was to make this accessible. You ever made anything proprietary, get rid of any unforeseen costs here. Uh, USB-C charging. That's seems like the most common modern standard. Didn't want to use any proprietary cables there. The, shutter cables use what you already have or buy them on Amazon. If you want to, we'll sell them for reasonable price. And you don't want to be included for your camera with it. Um, I mean, you gotta consider that these are consumable. They're, they're going to.

Lori Grace Bailey (40:16)
Great.

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Boyce (40:22)
the same couple of factories and it doesn't make sense to me to switch a couple wires so that you have to buy the one that I sell. So nothing proprietary there. Same thing with the covers is if these break, know, these should be for sale at an affordable price so you can have them on hand if you want an extra and if not, you should go get one the next day if you need it.

Lori Grace Bailey (40:39)
Mm-hmm.

I'll have

40 in my bag, I'm sure, when I'm ready for that.

Jeff Boyce (40:47)
I don't think that they're gonna be an issue because the way it was designed was to sit just far enough so that it's not gonna rest on it. But some cameras have different positions of these and things happen. ⁓ And sometimes...

Lori Grace Bailey (40:52)
Mm.

that's smart.

Mm-hmm.

Well, and I did that with

the cage too. I actually put mine up high on the cage. it's up in an area that's much more, it's susceptible to damage because it's outside of the cage on top.

Jeff Boyce (41:06)
Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, speaking of cages, this spring that was built in there, I got tired of the rotating tightening mechanisms and then some other ones, you know, you put them in and they'll fall right back out because they don't have any tightening at all. so this is made to go in and hold itself, but either direction too, so that you can use it with a cage that has reverse fighting.

Lori Grace Bailey (41:21)
Mm-hmm.

that's cool.

Yeah, the one I had,

didn't, I just kind of shoved it in there and it worked, but it wasn't designed like that. So you changed that as well recently. Yeah, mine was catching.

Jeff Boyce (41:40)
Yep. Yep. So it's, won't catch anymore. So,

that that's been fixed. so back on the shutter cables is, you know, these are consumable and they're really oftentimes the point of failure. And so one of the things we did here is there's a little led on the front. actually there's a bunch of them, but there's, there's these status windows. And so when you boot this thing up, you're to have a little led on the, camera and.

Lori Grace Bailey (41:53)
Mm-hmm.

yes, I remember this.

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Boyce (42:08)
When you set up your camera, what that's going to do is it doesn't just send a signal through this. It's actually in a way communicating with the camera. So it's detecting the voltages the camera is sending on this cable. So it can tell you a bunch of things. It can tell you if this is a loose. It can tell you if this is out. It can tell you if there's a break in the cable in here that you can't see. It can tell you if the camera is turned off or,

Lori Grace Bailey (42:16)
Mm-hmm.

I noticed that.

Jeff Boyce (42:35)
is in a mode where it's not ready to take a photo. it's, maybe you the settings wrong and it's doing a long exposure and it's holding the shutter down and this is detecting that it's not ready to receive a signal. So these are going to vary from camera to camera, but this again, it's built to be smarter and it's going to notify you via a beeping because it has a built-in speaker, via flashing lights and also the push notifications through the app.

Lori Grace Bailey (42:39)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

Jeff Boyce (43:02)
So the idea is trying to find all these failure points and eliminate them.

Lori Grace Bailey (43:08)
Because ultimately, I don't have time to mess around with this thing, right? I mean, you know what it's like. You've been chasing lightning also. You've been capturing lightning for years. bottom line is simplicity, right? Like, honestly,

I need simplicity. need to be able to do things coming from law enforcement experiences. I've learned that the best way to do things is muscle memory. I can actually do this now. I can sit there and go beep beep and then without even looking at it, I can hold the buttons in and engage the, you engage it in high mode, when I know I'm going to be dealing with a tough, maybe some tough bolts off in the distance, or I can just, I can.

Jeff Boyce (43:45)
You know,

interesting, you bring that up. I can mention something on that is, um, three of the beta testers you included asked for it to power onto, uh, the trigger mode automatically when you turn it off. So you don't have to press the second button. Um, so that, that's not, yeah, that's going to be added. You can select, you know, whatever mode you want to default to. So if you just want to turn this thing off. Yeah.

Lori Grace Bailey (43:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Right. yeah. cool.

So you took that step away. See here,

it would come in, and this is the old model, by the way, and it just, goes into off. So it's not in trigger mode, and that's already been resolved because that was one of the things was like, it's such a small step, but you were able to resolve that quickly to just go straight into mode, turn it on, point it at the sky.

speaking of, we need to talk about this thing. how long is this going to, because I am so forgetful about charging my devices. My phone will be on 2 % and you know, we're going to have problems here. I'm going to get mad at you for taking 5,000 shots and then getting mad because it finally died on me. What's the deal with that? How are we going to get around that?

Jeff Boyce (44:45)
Yeah.

So, I'll also blame myself for everything. which is why when you guys were texting me and saying, I missed a shot. I'm like panicking, stopping, whatever I'm doing, like, me pictures, videos, like show me all your settings and then try to find the fix. the battery in here is hate to not have that happen to you. You're going to see the power indicator turn to red and start getting you push notifications like a day in advance.

Lori Grace Bailey (44:50)
Nice.

Mm-hmm.

Nice.

Jeff Boyce (45:13)
And like a day's worth of use. in my testing, we're expecting at least 48 hours of runtime continuously with this. you should be able to shoot for a week of like all day or maybe a month.

Lori Grace Bailey (45:24)
Mm-hmm. I pretty much had that.

I wouldn't charge it. I would forget it. I'd be out in the field. can I, if this thing was sitting on there, can I just use a little anchor portable charger? Can I just throw that on there while it's already trying to, will it charge and be working at the same time? Or let's just say I'm, know, can I use a portable anchor charger or any of portable chargers and get some quick juice if I'm just driving down the road, bebopping down the road?

Jeff Boyce (45:39)
Absolutely.

Yeah. Or plugging into a computer or plugging into a camera via USB-C. If the camera puts out power. Yeah. Anything would work.

Lori Grace Bailey (45:55)
that's right.

your iPhone or

your phones will put out power. So you just run that.

Jeff Boyce (46:02)
that you new ones,

they, should know so far in advance, like 20 hours ahead of time, 20 hours of this being on ahead of time. And it's not going to stay on in your bag like some other ones, because since it knows if this is unplugged, if this is unplugged, it probably is no use for this to be on. So you could tell it to, in the settings, you can say, Hey, turn yourself off after 30 minutes of being unplugged. Things like that.

Lori Grace Bailey (46:26)
So Jeff, I actually had someone in one of the groups that I follow talk about this looks like a lot of mumbo jumbo sensationalism. Is that what this is? Is this something different?

Jeff Boyce (46:35)
Mm-hmm.

Lori Grace Bailey (46:39)
So tell me, Jeff, why are people, why are other chasers really excited about this?

It's not about the device, it's about having something so that you can get to work doing the creation as a photographer, as a storm photographer.

photographer storm chaser, right? So, but why do you think that there's that that buzz going on right now?

Jeff Boyce (46:59)
So there's a lot of things to it, but number one is it's not very often that like the chasing community gets new tech. And that's kind of the difference between this is this isn't a, you know, I would always say I'd rather do one thing well than everything mediocre. And this is really designed to do one thing well. ⁓ It's not an all around trigger. It's not made to catch water drops or fireworks. It might work fine. This is a trigger for lightning.

Lori Grace Bailey (47:05)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jeff Boyce (47:27)
And everything about this was designed for lightning for chasers. I fully encourage people to put this to the test side by side with other triggers. that's why I saying, Hey, try it for 60 days. And if you don't like it, it back. think it's going to be.

Lori Grace Bailey (47:40)
What

if they do? I was gonna ask you that and you just answered the question, but I was gonna throw that out there. What if someone says, you know what, I'm gonna back this Kickstarter campaign, I'm gonna grab one of these things, throw it and what if it doesn't work? So what if I end up getting it before storm season? Should I wait? Should I wait until that 60 day window? Because I'm not gonna have anything to test it by, right? I mean.

Jeff Boyce (47:57)
Yeah.

Yeah, I don't

expect to be super strict about that. would say reach out to me if you have issues and we'll work to resolve them or return it. I wouldn't say no questions asked because I'm going to ask questions of why you didn't like it because I like to make it better. But yeah, I'm super confident in it. don't, having used it side by side and having a bunch of folks that used it side by side with everything else out there. I am very confident that it's the best thing for shooting lightning.

Lori Grace Bailey (48:15)
Right?

Right, exactly.

Jeff Boyce (48:33)
And for just storm photography in general, you know, one of the phrases I use is, you know, to see the ultimate companion for chase series and storm photographers. And that's because a lot of the times I use this, not just for lightning, but that haboob I did not want to go through my camera and find an interverometer and make sure that was set up. I just want to, I just pulled this out and boom. All right. It's taking a picture every second. I mean.

Lori Grace Bailey (48:51)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

I'm going to tell

you, my personal, and I'll just say this, my personal favorite part of that device, of this new device is the intervalometer. but boy, I sure love to try to shoot for time-lapses. I want to be in that perfect median, right? ⁓

close enough to the storm to get some really great bolts, but also a little bit back enough to get the full structure and get a beautiful time lapse out of it. Whether it's day or night, I'm always kind of trying to shoot so I can tell the story of the storm and not just capture another bolt of lightning.

Someone even asked the question, I'm looking forward to hearing how Bolt Hunters Predictive Tech performs in monsoon conditions. And what was your experience? I'll let you say it because that was my bread and butter is the monsoon. How did you handle it?

Jeff Boyce (49:40)
So.

Yeah.

I mean, this thing was,

this thing was built in the monsoon. I mean, I was out there for weeks at a time with all the, all of the tools and actually like soldering up the boards and doing tests and collecting data. I mean, the monsoon is the best time to collect lightning. And it's some of the most popular lighting anywhere. So that's where this has seen the most use. It's also seen a bunch of use out in the flames and out in even.

unusual areas like California, where it's been really successful. ⁓ touching on that, as well as your last question about like, you know, why should people think this isn't just sensationalism aside from let it speak for itself? And I'm happy to let anyone let it prove itself is. I would be curious if there's any other triggers or anything else like this that are actually built by chasers or someone out there actively chasing, you know, in tune with the community and, and out there.

Lori Grace Bailey (50:28)
⁓ I like that.

Jeff Boyce (50:44)
having the same issues and trying to resolve those issues that everyone else is having. I think it, and having someone that is interested in, ⁓ and listening to the feedback and trying to find a way to improve things, you know, that a huge reason that this was built was to help photographers get better shots. And, you know, I mentioned that some of the beta testers, all the beta testers I picked are all better photographers than me, which is partly why I picked them. But it's.

Lori Grace Bailey (50:48)
Right.

Jeff Boyce (51:13)
It's really rewarding for me to be able to help people get those fantastic shots by making this for them. So I'm, I feel super invested in making it work and making it the best it can be. Cause then I see, I see people like you post the, uh, the shots that you posted on socials a few days ago and I hadn't even seen some of those and I'm just like blown away and I'm like showing everyone like, look what they got with the trigger. And I'm all excited about it. So.

Lori Grace Bailey (51:20)
Mm-hmm.

I love that.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and I appreciate that as well. I really think that, you know, when people go and they actually see, follow your, your personal, ⁓ social media accounts and actually take a look at some of your photographs, photographs that they would also agree that, that your photography is amazing. So don't sell yourself short. That's what I want to say. And I know I've come so far as well. Like that's why I do these podcasts. I want to tell those stories. And I'm so impressed that so many people out there, I mean, John Serlin for Pete's sake.

You throw a question at the guy and he's going to give you an answer as best as he can and anything that he gives you is just a nugget, a gold nugget of info. Just like you said, Jim, it's like, hey man, you want to go to Anza, the Borrego? This could happen or the Half Dome. It could happen. That's the part of the community that I really love. It seems like you're dialed into that part of the community as well. This is kind of a labor of love for you, is giving back.

Jeff Boyce (52:19)
Thank

Lori Grace Bailey (52:40)
Yeah, of course you want to make sales on these, but you know, it's been a labor of love for you to be able to know that something that you built captured the shot. I could tell that you put a lot of love into this thing and I'm really happy with it. But you know, like you said, people can make up their own mind.

It's not going to break the bank, The cameras, I tell people, you're only as good as your desire, as your passion to get out there.

You've to pour the discipline into it. You've got to pour that in there. But there are a lot of people in this community who are willing to spend time, to reach out, help you get those right tools to become a better photographer, a better storm chaser. And that's one of the best things about this community. Wouldn't you agree, Jeff?

Jeff Boyce (53:26)
absolutely. 100%. I mean, and that's kind of the whole idea behind this was trying to help people who are just getting started with it to be as successful as they can be and help the pros who've been doing it forever be the more successful. So, you know, it's all about, it's all about location is one of the things I've learned as well. But it doesn't mean that you have to go to the most scenic place. Sometimes you just have to be

Lori Grace Bailey (53:39)
I love that, for sure.

Jeff Boyce (53:52)
have the right viewpoint or you just have to the right hardware that lets you capture, you know, the one-shotiness. And, you know, that was one of the things that, ⁓ that I tried to focus on when I got this was just trying to get as many opportunities for shots rather than, you know, go to the top locations. Like, you know, one example was a Shiprock. It's like, there's some fantastic shots of lightning and Shiprock, but it's ⁓

Lori Grace Bailey (53:58)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Boyce (54:18)
It's hard, you have to get really lucky that it's actually going to happen. The storms gonna come straight over.

Lori Grace Bailey (54:20)
Right. Well,

know, Jim Tang's meteorology also can, you know, plays a big factor in knowing the when and the where. So it does. I get lucky, you know, cause I'm chasing the monsoon Right. I'm

Jeff Boyce (54:25)
Yes.

So, yeah.

Lori Grace Bailey (54:34)
I'm done. End of the night, you know, there's that, there's that cartoon where I'm done with everything. And then there's that cartoon where the person's in bed and they're like, looks at H triple R for the day for the next day. Right. Cause we get right back at it, but we've got to overcome, you know, feeling like, like failures and we got to get back after it. We will get better. We will, ⁓ we will improve. you just have to hang on and you're eventually going to get that shot.

But when can people get a hold of this and where?

Jeff Boyce (55:02)
So the best thing to do right now is to go to the website, bolthunter.io and add your email to the subscription list and we'll keep everyone up to date on there. We're expecting to launch on Kickstarter in about a month, sometime in January. Going through some regulatory compliance, injection molding, all that stuff is ironing out the details right now. And unless there's any unforeseen issues with any of those, which at this point not expecting.

Lori Grace Bailey (55:25)
Okay.

Jeff Boyce (55:31)
Then I would expect to launch in January where, customers can actually, back the project on Kickstarter to place their orders. And then the

Lori Grace Bailey (55:43)
Can I get my hands

on this before it's time to head out to the planes to get one? Cool.

Jeff Boyce (55:48)
Yes. So the

goal is April of the latest, hopefully March or even February

Lori Grace Bailey (55:55)
Good, good, you all heard that. we're just in time for storm season.

think that's all the questions that other people had. Is there anything else you wanted to share about the bolt hunter? Is there anything that you wanted to share with people that you just kind of had on your mind that you really haven't had a chance to share either on the website or here yet?

Jeff Boyce (56:19)
Once I start getting out there and testing it and going through all the data that I realized, hang on, there might be an opportunity here to do something that's completely different. And you know, how many times have you shot lightning at night and gotten an overexposed bolt? Because sometimes they come out super bright. Sometimes they come out dim. Sometimes they're perfectly exposed. It's like this ultimate challenge to get the foreground exposed with the bolt properly.

Lori Grace Bailey (56:34)
so much.

Mm-hmm.

It's that's

that's the trick.

Jeff Boyce (56:46)
So the reason bolts get blown out at night is because they have multiple return strokes most of the time. So if you have a 20 or 30 second exposure, 15 second, if you have a, if you have an exposure that lasts the duration of the bolt and you have your step leaders return stroke, return stroke, return stroke, return stroke, they generally hit in the same exact spot or really near to it. And so by the end of that, you just have this completely washed out channel.

Lori Grace Bailey (57:02)
and it pulses.

Yep.

Jeff Boyce (57:15)
So what this does is it's a trigger in reverse at night and it can stop taking a picture as quick as it can start taking a picture. So you have to deal with the same shutter lag when you end an exposure as when you start one. Which means that. Yeah. So if you let this, if you let this run night mode, you just sit there, it'll take long exposures in with the intervalometer by itself. You don't want to touch your camera at all. You just put it in bold.

Lori Grace Bailey (57:19)
Ugh.

wow. Dude.

my goodness.

Jeff Boyce (57:44)
And it'll take,

know, 15 or 20 second exposures, whatever you choose repetitively until at some point you get lightning. And the second that you get a bolt in that time, it's going to close after the first return stroke. That means that in my testing this last year, I was shooting at ISO 800 at 5.6 at night and getting the foreground exposed with like the grass and a single.

Lori Grace Bailey (58:05)
What?

Yeah.

Jeff Boyce (58:12)
I mean, that's the testament to actually catching

Lori Grace Bailey (58:13)
Yeah.

Jeff Boyce (58:14)
it, you you know, the one thing I would say with night mode is while I think it might be a game changer for shots at night, I wouldn't rely on just one camera and night mode if you can help it. ⁓ because what sometimes happens is you have that first turnstoke, but then you may have three other.

Lori Grace Bailey (58:15)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jeff Boyce (58:33)
bolts that come down right after that return while your camera is still processing and hasn't taken its next photo yet. And so I wouldn't want you to miss a shot with four, four bolts in one for the chance to get a return stroke.

Lori Grace Bailey (58:35)
yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. ⁓

Right?

I also had some of the biggest bolts and I missed them because of that very thing where it's just the return stroke and even you're visibly right, you're going, holy moly, man, that's burning my retina. I call those the retina burners, you And you just know that your shot's ruined because that camera stayed open and you didn't turn it off or whatever, you didn't shut off the shutter.

Jeff Boyce (58:46)
This is something.

Nighttime is the most difficult thing. A lot of times I'm shooting like F11, F13 and ISO, you know, 50. And then it happens and the bolt is like borderline blown out and the foreground is completely black. So I'm hoping that this is a solution to it. I'm excited to test it this year. I did test it a little bit a few months ago and for very promising results. So.

Lori Grace Bailey (59:14)
Yeah, that's still too bright.

Mm-hmm.

Very cool.

Well, that's great to hear as well. on the safety, speaking of the, know, lightning safety, what do you encourage people?

What's the caveat here? You're creating a really cool device to get really branchy bolts, especially if you're up close and personal. What's your advice to people? Come on. We all know the answer, but do people really listen? They need to, right? It's not fun.

Jeff Boyce (59:51)
Yeah, so...

No, I know I don't.

If, if anyone knows it would be you, but, um, I mean, if you're close enough to take a shot, you're close enough to get killed. That's pretty much the bottom line. Unless you're, you know, shooting just distant flashes from miles and miles and miles away, those bolts out of the blue even will come and get you. So the safest thing is to be inside a building or a vehicle. Um, that was another thing that went into building this is having the ability to control it remotely over Bluetooth.

Lori Grace Bailey (1:00:02)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, that's cool. Great.

Jeff Boyce (1:00:26)
from inside your car. So you set it up, you go and get inside your car and,

you know that it's impossible sometimes to not go out and peek and unplug it real quick. I get it. Did I get it? I know we all do it. Um, one of the things that this will be able to tell you is if you got the bolt from your phone, because if it knows your shutter speed and it knows the, uh, when the bolt actually landed and your shutter lag,

Lori Grace Bailey (1:00:34)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Well, I know we've covered a lot and I know that a lot of people are excited about this. I just wanted to end. Thanks for being willing to get on here and ⁓ actually talk about it, answer the tough questions and hopefully answer most people's questions. think most of us are.

or rather simple, you we want it to be simple and you've designed it to be as simple as possible, user friendly as possible ergonomics. Thank you so much, you know, and no more nine volts. Thank you so much for that as well. But at the same time, I wanted to ask you on a, far as, as far as you being a chaser, what is your favorite area to chase? What do you love to chase the most?

Jeff Boyce (1:01:38)
Yeah, that's changed over time. It used to be maybe Wyoming, Colorado, Plains, Kansas, for a variety of reasons. And it's really shifted to monsoons, Arizona, New Mexico. Some of those really hard, you know, there's always, south Eastern Arizona and Santa Cruz, Cochise County. Like am I saying it right? Cochise. Okay. Like that's, that's become one my favorites because it's like old faithful for lightning.

Lori Grace Bailey (1:01:58)
it. Yeah. Yeah, it's coaching.

Jeff Boyce (1:02:05)
every July, August.

Lori Grace Bailey (1:02:06)
Mm-hmm.

I call that region Monsoon Central, honestly.

Jeff Boyce (1:02:11)
But between there and New Mexico, know, Shiprock, Monument Valley, Grand Canyon, there's just, the desert Southwest is the ultimate place for lightning in my opinion. Sometimes you get a little bit structure too. And if you're craving some structure tornadoes, then there's always the plains, but desert Southwest.

Lori Grace Bailey (1:02:17)
off.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Dude, I know

If you have any other questions, can people reach out to you?

Jeff Boyce (1:02:32)
Yeah, absolutely. Happy to answer any of them. Happy to discuss anything or taking each. I've had a couple of emails challenging some claims and I've, I've come back and forth with those folks and I'm happy to do it.

Lori Grace Bailey (1:02:39)
Okay, I bet.

Well, there you go. So if you have any other questions, Jeff's available. Don't yell at me. I know I just tested it. I can give you my results. I did that with the last podcast. I gave you my honest results.

But most of all, be safe when you're doing it and overcome those barriers. think a lot of us, and for me, always get into, I always have to talk about the personal element of storm chasing. Most storm chasers chase because of a lot of the issues that we're going through in real life, right, in our personal life. And so we get out there, we overcome them, we overcome our own challenges and we become successful at storm chasing and it.

It feeds the passion and it feeds the soul. So I want this to continue to just allow people to grow and feel good about chasing. And yes, it's all about failure. You're going to fail miserably as a storm chaser, but if you stay at it, you're going to continue to grow and you're going to get better. And there are so many people out there that are willing to help you learn the tools.

I tell people, don't worry about all the biggest, baddest, coolest gadgets. Worry about getting the shot. And sometimes it's just you and the iPhone. Sometimes it's not even the iPhone. Sometimes you'll see the storm and you won't even take a photo. And that's where you know that you're at peace with chasing. You find the love for the skies and you stick with it. the rest of it is cool. It's cool just to share the stuff.

And it is nice, Jeff, that you've designed something that has helped me to be able to get that shot that I can then share with everybody. So thanks so much for coming on. I'm excited to see more videos. ⁓ That background, by the way, is the bomb that you've set up there in your studio. So I look forward to seeing more. When can we see more about this and more from you?

Jeff Boyce (1:04:28)
Thank you.

You're going to see some more stuff coming out over the next few weeks and then the big update when the Kickstarter goes live with the full video in January.

Lori Grace Bailey (1:04:43)
Awesome. Well, there you have it. If you have any other questions for Jeff, please send them to him. I'll link his website and all the other good stuff. That way you can reach out to him if you have any other questions. And Jeff, again, thanks for coming on. And as we stumbled through this, it was amazing and it's always great talking to you. And I appreciate the opportunity to give you my feedback while in the field, whether I nailed a shot or if it missed it. So thanks for being open and willing to listen to the.

to the feedback and make adjustments with it.

Jeff Boyce (1:05:12)
Thanks for having me.

Lori Grace Bailey (1:05:14)
Absolutely, that's about it. I'm gonna wrap this up and I hope you listen to another one, but like and subscribe and all that good stuff and share this out if you have other questions or other people have questions, share this link with them so hopefully they'll be able to get the answers that they're looking for. Take care everyone, chase safely and until the next time, God bless.