Storm

[PMW518]

I'm new here and fairly new to photography too. Just wanted to get a few opinions on this picture, nothing special or spectacular but any advice, opinions are welcome. Thanks much

[jbaldocchi]

Nice image. One thought you might want to crop out some of the foreground darkness and also on the left side to eliminate the tree. You might also want to dodge the lightning to make it more dramatic. Keep shooting.

Jim B.

[Ronnoco]

If you are new to photography, this kind of shot is out of your league. It requires a tripod, a setting of f16 and bulb. Then you cover and uncover the lens to get several lightning bolts in the same shot and hopefully better detail and less darkness in both the sky and the ground.

Ronnoco

[PMW518]

If you are new to photography, this kind of shot is out of your league. It requires a tripod, a setting of f16 and bulb. Then you cover and uncover the lens to get several lightning bolts in the same shot and hopefully better detail and less darkness in both the sky and the ground.

Ronnoco

I guess I phrased that wrong, I'm newer to using digital medium (dSLR especially) in photography and have a fair amount of experince with 35mm and darkroom BW and color and have done shots of stars and lightning before with bulb and long exposures. So I know the basics about taking them, I'm still just kinda getting aquainted with and playing around with my new camera (D70s) just to see what how it works out for different things and the differences from film. Thanks for the feedback though.

[Ronnoco]

Out of curiousity, why does there not seem to be colour in the lightning bolt or in the area immediately surrounding it?

Ronnoco

[GB1]

Welcome to the forums! If the buildings were something else like a church (or better yet, a castle!) this would have really worked. I love the capture of the lightning, but it is also too dim for the rest of the shot. Perhaps you can brighten it up in PP (post processing)?

Ronnoco's suggestion of covering and uncovering the lens is a good one. However, with the lighting that far away etc, you will still get an imbalance in brightness between the lights and the lightning no matter which way you cut it. A graduated ND filter might help. But this would be easier to do in PS or something.

gb

[gahspidy]

Welcome to the forum. I think the main problem here is it appears to be under exposed. Adjust your levels in this image ( using photoshop, paint shop pro,etc.) and suddenly the scene comes to life.I experimented with your image and found that moving just the white levels slider across brought out the scene dramatically. I would crop this a bit off the left to eliminate the part of the tree that is sneaking into the scene. I looked at the Exif info on your image and it says that this was captured with a Canon Rebel XT. So I take it this was not from your Nikon D70.
When I shoot night scenes like this, I find that i like to over expose a bit more than what my cameras matrix/pattern metering suggests. Keep playing around with the camera and continue practicing these shots at different exposures to see what you feel works best. I
look forward to seeing more.

[PMW518]

Welcome to the forum. I think the main problem here is it appears to be under exposed. Adjust your levels in this image ( using photoshop, paint shop pro,etc.) and suddenly the scene comes to life.I experimented with your image and found that moving just the white levels slider across brought out the scene dramatically. I would crop this a bit off the left to eliminate the part of the tree that is sneaking into the scene. I looked at the Exif info on your image and it says that this was captured with a Canon Rebel XT. So I take it this was not from your Nikon D70.
When I shoot night scenes like this, I find that i like to over expose a bit more than what my cameras matrix/pattern metering suggests. Keep playing around with the camera and continue practicing these shots at different exposures to see what you feel works best. I
look forward to seeing more.

Ya I have been trying a few things with photoshop but just haven't had a whole lot of time lately with lots of class and studying to do.
Your right that it wasn't my camera that this was taken with, I actually took this with a friends who has an XT when I was thinking of getting a DSLR but wasn't sure if I could justify spending that much money and I didn't know anyone with a D70 but the XT is pretty similar or at least as close as I could find in one that I could try out.
So I decided to get my own but again because of class haven't had a whole lot of time to shoot and play around with it yet. Hopefully soon.
Thanks much to everyone for all the helpful pointers and tips from everyone so far, they are much appreciated.