Lightning in SE Michigan - my 1st shots

[mtbdudex]

The storm rolled into our area 8pm, I got the camera quickly mounted to my new tripod, set-up my new remote trigger to take continuous time exposures, got 4 decent lighting shots out of 250.
I show the original shot and the crop of the lighting area.

Still daylight, so needed shorter exposure or image got blown out.
(did some trial shots at longer exposure)

These are my 1st ever shots of lighting!
Used my 18-55mm IS kit lens @ 18mm.
100 ISO for all.

1 Backyard shot captured lightning:
18mm, 6 sec exposure f22

crop:

3 Front porch shots captured lightning (covered area, was raining for these):
18mm 2 sec exposure f22

crop

18mm 2 sec exposure f22

crop

18mm 2 sec exposure f22

crop

 

[mtbdudex]

I ordered this remote from POTN store, got it 3 days ago, my 1st time using.
Pretty simple/easy to set-up and use, worked nice for these.
Set on continuous shot, camera kept shooting and shooting....gave me lots of shots to delete....

 

[G.T.]

Quite cool

 

[ManhattanPrjct]

Pretty cool - it's too bad it wasn't nighttime - there would probably be some better contrast.

PS: lose your lens cap often?

 

[telecomm]

What are you using to edit these? You've got some dust spots to clean up on a few, and they're over-sharpened. (See the halos around the trees? They're caused by over-shapening.) The third from the end could probably use some noise reduction too.

Also, what about cropping out the black overhang at the top of the last few?

These look good for a first attempt!

 

[mtbdudex]

Pretty cool - it's too bad it wasn't nighttime - there would probably be some better contrast.

PS: lose your lens cap often?

Yea, I'm kinda geeky on the lens cap straps, I've lost 2 by setting them down and moving. Hopefully I can get in near future nightime lighting shots, those are more dramatic.

What are you using to edit these? You've got some dust spots to clean up on a few, and they're over-sharpened. (See the halos around the trees? They're caused by over-shapening.) The third from the end could probably use some noise reduction too.

Also, what about cropping out the black overhang at the top of the last few?

These look good for a first attempt!

Good CC, thx. I use PSE8 for PP, I do realize over-sharpened, did it quickly.
I need to learn editing in layers and selective just sharpening certain areas.

 

[jbg232]

Pretty cool - it's too bad it wasn't nighttime - there would probably be some better contrast.

I agree but you could definitely edit that very easily in aperture or photoshop as you took them with ISO 100. Just turn down the exposure and set the black point/brightness/contrast, etc. to enhance the "feeling." Because lightning is so bright the feel you would be looking for would be well preserved. Personally, I would make it very dark, add a gradient filter to give it a contrasty feel, then increase the saturation of the blue from the pool to make it look interesting. Either way you should try something out and post the pics - you have most of what you need, you just need to go that extra 10% to get some great photos!

 

[liljohnny51]

i live in the SE Michigan area. is this lighting from the storms that hit us this past weekend in the Dundee area? we got hit with like 3 tornados.

 

[mtbdudex]

i live in the SE Michigan area. is this lighting from the storms that hit us this past weekend in the Dundee area? we got hit with like 3 tornados.

This was Friday night 8:05 pm Howell M59/US23 area, wind shear hit us pretty bad. I took 1st one before the wind shear and other 3 after.
I had my home windows open at the top and only 3rd time I've seen rain/wind blow horizontal straight that it rained at the top of my windows!

Those tornadoes were Saturday evening.