Assigment: slow shutter speed

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

D700
24-70mm F/2.8G
66mm
ISO 200
f11 at 5s
Manual mode
Matrix Metering
0.0EV
Auto white balance
Tripod

Cropped

Another use of slow shutter speed, night and lighting photography.

Posted a similar image in Travel and Cityscapes forum a long while ago, this was taken on the same date. Didn't have lighting trigger so I used the long shutter speed of 5s to increase my chances of capturing one.

I've read somewhere that f16 is often not large enough opening to record proper exposure for lighting strkes (even though you increase the shutter speed), any idea why?

All comments and suggestions are welcome.

[Gus Cobos]

Hi Thanaboon,
I like this capture very much, you managed to get the perfect lightning strike, I like the dark purple tones and hues of the night sky...:cool:

[Nick Palmieri]

I like the color tone. Very nice composition.

[Ron Boisvert]

Hi Thanaboon,

I'm not familiar with the f/16 suggestion, so this is an educated guess on my part. You might consider that the exposure for the lightning is extremely brief. You use a long exposure to increase your chances of catching a strike while the shutter is open, not to control the exposure for the lightning. The aperture will control how much of the light from the strike reaches the sensor or film, not the shutter speed at long exposures. A small aperture would produce a much dimmer image of the strike than a large aperture.
Does this make sense?

Regards,

[Thanaboon Jearkjirm]

Dear Ron, a very good educated guess and it does make sense. Thank you!

[Jeff Cashdollar]

Ron is right, the hole in the lens is the aperture, I assume => f/16 not enough light for best effort.

This is a killer shot! One of my favorite pictures of the year!!!

[Lance Peters]

Hi - well done - love the colours and the action - well thought out to produce your result.
:)

[Richard Waas]

Excellent capture. I recently got the lightening trigger, but haven't been able to get as good an image as this. Congrats!!

[Alfred Forns]

Excellent image !!!

Regarding the f 16 can think of one suggestion .. not much need since you are shooting at the far end of the focusing range which has lots dof !! Just like shooting down from an airplane no need to stop down at all

[Kyle Marie Barcelos]

Sweet, love the purple in the sky, this shot is awesome:D