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Jul, 2017Views
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Winner in Lightning Photo Challenge
People's Choice in Mother nature's lightning Photo Challenge
People's Choice in Only Black * White Photo Challenge
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Magnificent Capture
Absolute Masterpiece
Superb Composition
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Genius
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
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Behind The Lens
Location
This was taken on highway 380 east of Newcastle Texas. I had pulled over to get shots of a cool auto/truck/sign graveyard I found when the storm rolled inTime
This shot was taken in the late afternoon on a summer day, around 5:00PM. It only looks dark due to the storm, the sun was still fairly high in the skyLighting
This is an HDR combo of three shots, but only one of them really captured the lightning bolt well - the others helped bring out the shading in the surrounding landscape that the lightning washed out. I'm still learning what HDR can and can't do, but when it works it allows for some pretty cool shots!Equipment
For this shot I was just sitting on the tailgate of my truck holding the camera steady in my lap - I didn't mess with a tripod as I was out in the open and wanted to be able to take shelter fast if the rain started; I sat there for almost 20 minutes before I was able to capture a decent bolt, and I didn't want to have everything get wet when the downpour started! I used a Canon 70D and Tamron 16-300mm lens.Inspiration
I've always wanted to capture a decent lightning strike; when the storm started rolling in I switched gears, put everything else up, and focused on the storm. It was a fairly intense storm with lots of lightning.Editing
This is an HDR combined from 3 bracketed shots using Lightroom and Google NIC tools. I did crop this edit from a larger color version and remove some construction barrels that I thought were distracting, but the bolt itself is untouched.In my camera bag
These days my 'walk about' setup is a Canon RP Mirrorless with a 24-240mm lens, but I'll also carry a 5D Mk III with any number of lenses if I'm looking to shoot something specific. I do have a couple of crop sensor bodies if I want a bit more reach, the extra magnification from the 1.6 crop factor helps there. I'm usually looking for cool things at random while traveling, so I often don't plan shots beforehand - I'm a pretty impromptu/opportunistic photographer. I've found I spend the most time with a 16-35mm wide angle, various prime lenses, or some sort of zoom depending on what I'm shooting. I also tend to use super-zooms a lot so I don't have to changes lenses out in the open.Feedback
I've learned a lot since I shot this image, I wouldn't do things the same way today. I wasted a lot of shots here trying to capture a bolt handheld with the shutter fast enough to eliminate shake; if I had to do it again I'd use a tripod with an ND filter and remote to slow the shutter as much as possible, in order to let the sensor have more time to get lucky!
