Need some tips for taking sunset and lightning photos

[travis.m.roberts]

Recently I was fortunate enough to witness an incredible sunset and a lightning show... and get some photos. Unfortunately a lot of my photos didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. Here are the things I found I need to figure out:

Sunsets: What I was finding out is that a lot of my sunsets were a bit out of focus. And some of the comments I got were that, even though I followed the rule of thirds horizontally but I guess I broke it vertically. What should I do?

Lightning: Aside from the fact that there is a HUGE amount of luck involved here I found that almost all of my photos, once cropped and blown up were out of focus. I found that I couldn't find a solid, sharp object to focus on and had to rely on manual focusing which ultimately didn't work out like I had hoped.

I would love some tips here. Thanks in advance.

Here are two examples:

[QueenChatty]

Travis I'm sure somebody will come along and give you some tips.
I'm just new to digital photography so I can't help ya but I sure wish I was taking good pictures like those and don't worry I'm sure if you keep clicking away you will improve to your satisfaction.
All said and done I like the shots you posted.
What lens did you use? Did you use a tripod. I took a short course earlier this year and I wonder if you use a tripod and do a timed shot if that would help.

[tigerotor77w]

Photo 1:

Horizon is a bit crooked. I also would have placed the horizon a bit further down, as that would bring the sun into the bottom-left "thirds" intersection. Right now, the sun itself is right about halfway vertically (and 1/3 horizontally), so if you were going for the rule of thirds, lowering your horizon would help a bit. That being said, I think the reflection leads the eye into the scene well, and the dramatic colors are really rewarding.

Photo 2:

I actually like it. It's a little dark, but I like the ominousness of the whole scene. One option you could try is to crop tighter on the bolt itself, but that goes lose some of the red...

I wish I could give some tips on focus -- my inclination would be to focus at infinity using the distance guide (the shorter leg of the sideways "L" marking), but perhaps someone else can share his or her thoughts...

[travis.m.roberts]

As far as the lens used I think I used my 18-55mm IS. I definetely used a tripod. For the sunset I just adjusted the ISO and shutter speed till I got the right exposure. As photo instructor taught me a neat trick when I want reds to pop out (especially if there is red in the available light). Adjust the white balance to the present (either shade or cloudy). IT WORKS!!!! For the lightning I set up my camera (again on a tripod) with a 1 or 1.5 sec. shutter speed and just started clicking away. I shot almost 600 pics and got 4.

[tigerotor77w]

A few thoughts. If you're using a decent tripod, there's really no reason to use anything other than ISO100. The less the noise, the better, and you can get to the point of avoiding noise because you don't care about long shutter speeds with a tripod. You'll want to use mirror lock-up and possibly a delay (so that all vibrations have completely died out), but it seems you've got the right idea here.

As for making the reds pop -- I'd say that your metering is pretty decent in the first (perhaps a bit overexposed), but you can always play with the white balance in DPP, which comes with the camera. If you're shooting RAW, you can mess around with the settings of WB until you find something that you like -- so in case you mess up the WB setting or if you just want to try something new, you're always free to do it. In case you haven't seen this thread, http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=684360,

there are some nice, visual reasons to shoot RAW. :)

[ssive]

here are a couple of mine, taken with my old fuji. no editing done at all, just got lucky with the time i think
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k64/ssive90/Photography/Challengebeach.jpg
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k64/ssive90/Photography/Challengebeach2.jpg
http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k64/ssive90/Photography/Challengebeach3.jpg