Give me your thoughts....

.... good or bad, don't care. I posted this in the Travel and Landscape section and it got completely ignored. I am curious what makes this so hoo-humm because I kinda of like it. But I am hardly objective here... so I would love to hear your opinions... good, bad, ugly, or just dang boring.

This is the type of picture that sounds awesome on paper, but then when you actually see it, it's like, "Eh..."

Still an interesting shot even if it's not a major work of art.

It's just too dark. If you had exposed it longer you could do a lot in post to inject life into the shot. As it stands it becomes too noisy when trying to bring up the levels of brightness and contrast.

Here's my go at it, but the noise reduction starts to give it a watercolor effect.

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There is so much noise in this photo...the colors are now working against it.

color slide and crop...goes right to painting-ish, not the photo you took, but a somewhat fantasy sky

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I like lightning shots anyway, so I'm biased! I like it. I think it might benefit from some cropping though, remove more of the dark areas on all four sides to make the lightning and the clouds "larger".

I like Flo's edit.

It's always interesting to see how others view stuff.... very cool. Thanks. I am not sure why the grain/noise popped in this shot...need to look at the master. I don't remember it being so bad and I kept ISO way down too. Hmmmm.

I would like to see the EXIF.can't read anything from the photo?

Croasdail wrote in post #5307113
It's always interesting to see how others view stuff.... very cool. Thanks. I am not sure why the grain/noise popped in this shot...need to look at the master. I don't remember it being so bad and I kept ISO way down too. Hmmmm.

Noise is always an issue when you try to recover shadow areas in an image. The best way to avoid it is to expose so that your histogram is as close to the right side without clipping.

I think photos like this have a certain appeal to the original shooter becuase of the "Holy Sh*t, I did it...!!!" factor.

Not to take anything away from the effort, but I know I'm guilty of hanging on to certain shots because the technical aspects required to even get something close outweigh the actual quality of the final image.

The more you shoot, the more ruthless you start to become with your post-shoot editing. Conversely, the more you shoot, the better your keeper to trash ratio becomes as well. Eventually, everything you shoot will be a winner!! Right Gang?

Flo wrote in post #5307150
I would like to see the EXIF.can't read anything from the photo?

Canon 1D mk IIn w/ 17-40 f4
ISO 320
Shutter - 20 Seconds
F - 6.3.
lens - shot at 23mm

Image was shot RAW

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this was only ISO 320 - but sharpening might have been turned up too high in the raw converter. I almost always remember to turn sharpening all the way off. That might explain the noise - though personally it isn't bugging me as much as it is you all. I grew up with their being noise/grain in night shots - I think my expectations are a bit off from today's standard noise ninja'ed stuff. But again, at ISO 320, there shouldn't have been much to start with.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #5308406
I think photos like this have a certain appeal to the original shooter becuase of the "Holy Sh*t, I did it...!!!" factor.

I have several lightning photos Of my own that I like for no other reason than this...Well stated.

I have tried reediting mine several diffrent times and always wind up with an edit much like the original post...gues that's my preferance also.

Any summer evening with a thunderstorm looming will find me setting outside ready to bring the gear in when the first rain falls...I love storms so this is an awsome way to spend the evening.

if you have the raw file try working on that.
a little dark, but i like it actually.

diggin flo's edit. nice job bringing this picture back, i would have probably thrown it out and lost a great keeper

Thanks everyone for you input and renditions... very educational. Thanks.