Lightning

[limeydal]

I captured a number of images last week of a lightning storm over Downtown San Diego.
The problem was with the reflected city lighting on the clouds ,it was difficult to get a dark sky with the long exposure. (20 seconds) Also had the tripod locked steady ,but was on a wooden deck.(So not sure if that was responsible for the slight vibration that caused blurring. Any advice to get a crisper shot?

Canon 20D/canon28-135 zoom
cheers Dal

[wolverinesr1]

wow, now that is some lightning.i like it even with the reflected city lighting

[Paul A]

WOW!!! Good shot!!

[dancinec]

Impressiv shot, nicely done. keep up the good work.

[tupe]

That's a classic. Nice work.

[R Hardman]

Cool shot! I'm northeast of you in the middle of the desert and the city lights are not even bright enough to wash out the Milkyway. Yes, the wooden deck can cause bluring. Wood is flexible yet dense and transmits vibrations right up metal legs of the tripod. If you were walking around waiting on the image that may have caused it. Try putting some rubber mats under the feet to absorb some of them. During long exposures there really is no need for the mirror to be in the way. Lock it up prior to shooting. This also takes one factor away from getting a blurry image. To help with reducing the sky lighting, go ISO 100 and reduce your aperture. In your case I would expose for the natural city lights first while trying to keep the shutter speed between 8-15. (You have a digital so you can keep shooting without running out of film.) Lightning is bright and also going with a small aperture helps in reducing the chance of over exposure while at the same time giving you great depth of field and better control during focus. I go manual focus and after my first lightning catch I view the image and zoom in to ensure it is in focus. Make corrections to focus then shoot again. Looking forward to more! Again, cool shot!

[limeydal]

Thanks for the advice,it's very much appreciated.It's my first go at lightning ,as it is not very often we get it here. Such a shame ,as I would love to try more.
My usual subjects are shot from a moving boat so a big challenge for me to change style. So glad I got a few decent shots at the first try.
It's a shame the storm was moving so rapidly as it quickly moved behind some trees that obscured my view and the last image was the "stick -man" below.Not as dramatic but interesting shape;
Thanks again,
cheers Dal

[Lord_Malone]

Holy!