My first try at lightning

[Shindy]

All advise and suggestions are welcome, but I'm perticularly questioning my Aperture setting.



Canon 50D
Manual Exp.
Shutter (Bulb) 5 sec.
Aperture 5.6
ISO 100
EF 18-135mm Lens @135
Focus @ Infinite

[Michael_2010]

That's a good one, especially for a first.

[lord xeon]

that's a very dramatic shot, one thing about lightning is that you never know what you'll get.

For this shot particularlly, I would reccomend cropping it to about the tree on the left. Those two out of focus bolts on the far left distract from the perfectly focused ones on the right. You could dabble with takking the tree out completely, but that's up to you.

As far as aperture f/5.6 is about what I use when I go for lightning, but it mostly depends on the time of the storm, so far this year all my storms have been in the afternoon so I went to about f/14 because otherwise everything gets washed out.

[Shindy]

Thanks for your comments. I was lucky on my first try. There was a lot of Heat Lightning that night so I didn't taken any long exposure; just openned the shutter for a few seconds at a time. Out of a 150 or so shot I got this photo and one more good single strike and 3 or 4 so-so shots. I will try your suggestion on cropping. Thanks again.

[trentonmcanally]

Personally I agree with the cropping thing, but I say keep the tree but darken the darks a little for the whole picture to take the light out of the tree. It should make the lightning pop a little more. Don't get me wrong though, beautiful shot.

[leviathan]

Yeah-ha~!!! Awesome.