More lightning - looking for opinions on white balance

Ok, I shot this back in January, believe it or not. Unfortunately I wasn't in an impressive location, just huddled under my little front porch overhang... but it's a nice bolt. But here's the question: do you like the bluish or purplish look better? Most lightning shots I get seem to end up with a purplish hue (using auto white balance - just too much weird lighting going on on a stormy night to try customizing). I just tweak the white balance in the raw to get a more "natural" bluish look afterwards. Lately I've had a few people say they prefer the purple. Opinions?

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Prefer the blue sky myself,looks more natural to myself.

Ditto. I like the blue also.

Try it in bw

I like the first one the best, I've seen it like that more so than the second one. Great shot either way.

I say blue for the natural look. Ditto the B&W

Purple looks GREAT!

Both are OK with me, as long as you don't get hit!!

Lynn

I took the liberty of cropping your picture using the blue sky mode.

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I guess I'm the odd man out here, but I personally prefer the purple...I think it adds to the drama and the surreal feel of lightening shots.

Just my humble $.02 worth,
Jim

Walczak Photo wrote in post #5401916
I guess I'm the odd man out here, but I personally prefer the purple...I think it adds to the drama and the surreal feel of lightening shots.

Just my humble $.02 worth,
Jim

i agree wit Jim i think the purple gives it a kinda horror movie type drama effect blue is nice as well plus i really like the crop weather_wrangler did

Go with the blue as it is more natural and it keeps the lightning itself white instead of pink. Also, depending on time of day and length of exposure, you'll find that you can get tints of blue, purple, pink, green and red. Use the Remove Color Cast (Photoshop) or equivalent in other PP software to fix that. I find the hardest ones to fix are when the lightning changes color ONLY when it ionizes the rain shaft and the rest of the strike is a pure white. The most extreme case I've run into had 7 paths to ground in which 3 of them were separate colors than the other 4 that were white. Next time you want to capture lightning you definately want to move to a location that doesn't have anything in the way. LOCATION is key to good lightning pictures. Good luck!!

Rick

No B&W ? I would like to see it in B&W to see the diferance.

I too prefer the blue.
Did you fall off your porch after that strike? Looks like one of the branches of lightening is passing in front of the tree across the road. That close a hit would have scared the poop out of me!