Lightning over Louisville

[jax314]

Any thoughts on the crop, composition, or the exposure? Any feedback is helpful...positive or negative. I am new to cityscapes, night shots, and lightning....so why not try for all three! Thanks in advance for the help.

Nikon D5000
f/8
21.2 seconds
35mm
ISO 200

[Corey Thompson]

The lights under the bridge are blown out, which makes me think you might have been able to get away with shooting at iso100. Aside from that I love how the bridge, sky, and lightning are exposed. If you were to use a tripod to take two shots of this scene, you could take a darker photo of this scene and do some exposure blending to fix the blown out lights under the bridge, meanwhile leaving the rest of the photo untouched.

[leviathan]

I think it is a stunning photo! What an awesome capture of the lightning. That alone is such an accomplishment! My one piece of feedback would be that I think the exposure is a little too high. I think if you bring the exposure down, it will highlight the lightning a little bit more because the sky will be darker and so forth. Good job!

[jax314]

Here is one more from the same set using lower ISO.....overall scene is darker....do you think that it is better?

[Corey Thompson]

I prefer the way the second photo looks with the darker sky. It helps the lightning to stand out better.

[Ridgetop]

The second shot is better. Better exposure and far less empty boring sky above the lightening. I would crop out part of the sky above the lightening in the first shot. Nothing too much to look at there. If you shot raw then you can darken the exposure too which will help the sky quite a bit. I like the second shot, especially the sky.