Lightning

[Michael Lloyd]

We are a little dry here in Texas. This storm passed to the west and south of me so I didn't get any rain from it. The lightning sparked a fire in the general direction of this shot.

EOS1DMKIV manual
70-200 f2.8L IS II on a tripod @70mm

ISO 200
30s@f2.8

I was asked on another forum why ISO 200. ISO 200 happened to be the ISO that worked for a 30s exposure at f2.8. I treat ISO as a degree of freedom. I wanted 30s because (a) that's the slowest that my camera can shoot without resorting to Bulb and (b) I wanted to capture multiple strikes in one frame.

[Robert Amoruso]

That is pretty cool with all the bolts. I would clone the tower lights out and crop more into a pano from top and bottom.

[Andrew McLachlan]

Hi Michael, very cool with the lightning bolts. Ditto on the tower lights and the crop.

[Michael Lloyd]

Thanks guys. I could use some help with the crop. There are some small trees to the far left, then a small lightning streamer, and then a cow feeding. I'm thinking pano crop from the left side of those small trees to the right side of the small forked streamer at about mid frame, just before the feeder (small rectangle). I would lose the big strike from the right side though. Am I trying too hard to keep the small trees and cow? I keep thinking that the cow is inconsequential but at same time it is interesting in that it's relaxed amidst all of that chaos (actually it's miles from the chaos).

Thoughts?

[Jeff Parker]

Your crop idea sounds pretty good to me. I like the tree and cow on the left. The big tree on the right bothers me with the motion blur and the crop would get rid of it.

[Rachel Hollander]

Michael - very neat to see. I agree that a pano crop would work well but don't think you need to crop any from the sides, just the top and bottom. I sort of like the cow. I agree on getting rid of the light towers.

TFS,
Rachel

[Randy Bronkema]

Michael, nice lighting strikes yes clone out the tower lights and I like the idea of the pano crop but I would try a crop right up to the tree on the right. also I would like to see the forground darker The cow draws you into the image as well as the trees on the left. very cool......

Randy

[Morkel Erasmus]

Pretty cool! I agree on the pano crop...did you incur some camera shake?

[Michael Lloyd]

We incurred some wind. The camera was on a tripod but the outflow from the dying storm was pretty strong

[Michael Lloyd]

Pretty cool! I agree on the pano crop...did you incur some camera shake?

I just revisited the image with the intent of cropping as suggested and I see why you asked about shake now. I thought it was because the tree to the right had some motion blur due to the wind but there is a slight shift in some components of the image that I hadn't noticed before. If I had to guess it's only a few pixels but with the cow and some of the trees it's very noticeable in the original at 100%. Good catch!

I'm not sure what happened to cause it. 30s is a fairly long shutter speed so it could have been a glitch in the IS function of the lens. When I shoot video I have to turn IS off so I probably should have turned IS off before shooting a long exposure.