Lightning Strike

[vjhoward]

A big thunderstorm rolled in tonight, so I grabbed my camera and shot out an upstairs window. A bunch of missed shots and manual adjustments later, and I got this shot of a lightning strike. It is my first lightning strike to capture on my camera.

I did a little post processing in Capture NX2 to fix levels and contrast, applied unsharp mask and did some spot sharpening on the trees (bottom right) and lightning.

I am an absolute amateur and have focused most of time photographing people. Please provide feedback and recommendations on how this shot could be improved (in camera or in post). Feel free to grab and re-edit (just let me know what you did).

EXIF
Camera: Nikon D300S, 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 lens
Exposure: 1.6 secs
Aperture: f/8.0
Focal Length: 26 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Lightning Strike on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[navcom]

Composition-wise, I think it's a great shot. Unfortunately it's quite out of focus. I'm going to assume you took this in the dark (or close to dark). The best advice for getting this type of shot in focus is to use hyperfocal distancing (do a search for tons of info on the how-to).

Auto focus (I'm assuming that's what you used) will not focus properly in the dark or near-dark. Another option is to use the infinity setting on your lens. That will get you close but might not make it super crisp.

Hope that helps!

[vjhoward]

Thanks. Actually I used manual focus and put it on infinity. But, I am guessing I might have bumped it off infinity when I did some changes for focal length. Tried to clean it up in post, but out of focus is out of focus.

Regarding comments on composition, thanks! I have been really struggling to "see" the shot...even after I take it. Must be my strong left brain taking over.

[fuscom]

I took you up on the opportunity to tweek it, and looked at it in the form of story The bolt is the main character, so make it front and center of attention, the best supporting actor (if you will) is the colors in the sky, they need to make the main character look good. Background character fill is the trees.

Considering this, I cropped so the lightning is right there in your face more. I then bumped the exposure up .4, cranked the definition up full bore and kicked in the vibrancy .1. I think that not only gives more brilliance to the lightning, but adds a bit more saturation to the colors in the sky, as well. Finally, I added a little bit of a gamma vignette with an intensity of 1.0 and a radius of .5

Here's my take on it.

[ML Photography]

Amazing colours in the sky, and a very effective composition. This shot is really captivating...