Natural Energy

[Andrew Aveley]

We don't normally get any great light shows down on the southern edge of Africa but on Valentines evening we were treated to some extreme weather...hot , humid with a light show. I missed the sunset so moved up onto high ground and hoped the storm would break.......and it did!

Canon 5d MK 2 , ISO 200 , F10 , 118 Sec s/s , 17mm - 40 mm F 4 lens @ 29 mm. tripod and remote trigger on bulb mode ( not sure if i use in camera noise reduction)

Cropped top and bottom , basic LR process with NR

[Chris Korman]

Interesting catching the lightening, always something unpredictable about when and where you'll get. I feel there is a bit too much "black" in the image. given that you are shooting largely at distant object at 29 mm, you could have gotten away with shooting at f/4 which would have given you two more stops of light, also shooting at ISO800 would have been a happy compromise of noise and extra speed, giving you 2 more stops.

[Dave Mills]

Hi Andrew, Good capture of the lightening. Aside from the lit opening in the clouds on the left there is not much going on in the sky that you have allocated alot of space. You can pull some detail out of the sky by using S/H but applied lightly. I would further the pano crop and crop below the lit area on the left.
The heavily lit city is also stealing some of the impact of the lightening.

[Robert Amoruso]

Andrew.

I agree with Dave's crop suggestion and working up the cloud detail some as he suggested.

[Roman Kurywczak]

Hey Andrew,
Great advice above! I love lightning.......so opening up the clouds a bit either will work for me also. Keep in mind Chris recommendation for the future attempts also.

[bhavya joshi]

Well done Andrew, good lighting effects and city come out well.
and all the thing are explain by others and suggest so, I want to only say.
good luck for next image.:bg3:

[Kaushik Balakumar]

What a strike !
Great moment. Good part about this image is that you've got the lightning striking at thirds' intersection lines on the left and on the right and the vast city lights inbetween.

A fine image.

[Andrew Aveley]

thansk you all for the great comments and very helpfull advice:c3: