Your Best Lightning Shot to date...

[Drew.Gardonia]

As you can see, all my recent ones with my DSLR always turn out the same in regards to color. Any ideas on how to enhance the colors of these lightning shots? It just all seems to be that purple color, and I cannot get any background or foreground elements to show up

use lightroom or photoshop and adjust the exposure. if you are in lightroom, you can use recovery and fill light as appropriate and try playing with the contrast a little bit and see if that helps any.

when i shoot lightning i set 100 iso and about f/8 or f/9 in bulb mode and use a remote shutter cable and hold the shutter open for 5-20 seconds depending on how frequent the lightning is.

 

[Ben Holcomb]

Had a great lightning shoot the other night near Aspermont, TX. I think this is my favorite.

Although this is a good runner up!

 

[James Langford]

Yep, the Aspermont storm was some of my best lightning ever:



[url=http://www.langfordphotography.com/For-Sale/New-Site-Panormaics/9004552_h7zw9H#!i=1826366809&k=TVftnbB&lb=1&s=A]


Crazy stack of 8 minutes worth of lightning!

 

[Christopher E. Kincaid]

Lightning in North Central IL

I had one of my best lightning shoots on the night of the May the 3rd. I am still working on these shots so they will change some in the future. These pics really revealed the weaknesses of Elements 9. PSE9 doesn't allow you fix CA.

My log of sorts...

What a crazy lightning storm up north last night!!! I chased some towers going up near Peoria, IL since there was a Tornado Watch. I lost the structure in the low clouds then it got dark. I decided to try and get some handheld evening lightning shots. God love my Tokina 11-16 F2.8 lens! I just set it to infinity and shot away hoping to get something. These first shots were taken after 8:00pm CDT.

I then moved to a nice spot to setup to do some tripod shots. The lightning was VERY close and all around me. I parked near a metal grain bin. Maybe not the brightest idea lol. I shot several shots before the rain, quarter sized hail and flooding moved in. I devised a way to setup the tripod and camera right outside my driver's door so I can sit in comfort and relative safety while I shot. Works nice.

I decided that I didn't want to wait out the rain and hail so I used GR3 to position myself out of the rain. Verizon rocks because I never lost my data despite the unreal electrical storm around me. In my rush to setup before the rain came I forgot to set the Tokie on infinity so 4 really awesome close bolts are outta focus. Sigh. Some were also taken at 16mm by accident. These hit less than a 1/2 a mile away! The lightning was so bright and intense I had to set my camera to iso100 and F10. Most were 10 sec or less exposures.

Here is a crop of the pic above. I think there is a leader visible. That farm got hit lots that night!

 

[Dan GTX]

I BOW TO THE LIGHTNING PHOTO MASTERS.

Geez, I thought mine had some flair to them. I feel as though I got 'pwned... lol

Well, might as well share mine to see how they compare, eh?

I can't really decide between these two as to which is my "Best"...

 

[MClarkson]

This thread is full of some of the most amazing pictures. Props to everyone.

 

[Brad Goddard]

Here is my by far best lighting image so far. From central IL last week 5/3/12

 

[Jarrod Barnett]

SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!

Love this shot! Def the better of the 2 IMO.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Dan, great shot there. What date was this? I've also shot lightning photos/videos in Pittsburgh many times (family in Washington).

 

[Christopher E. Kincaid]

Here is my by far best lighting image so far. From central IL last week 5/3/12

Great shot! When and where was this taken? I was out then too. Wonder if I got the same shots from different perspectives.

 

[Brad Goddard]

It was a couple miles south of Toluca IL around 8:15. Best lightning display I've seen in a long while.

 

[Christopher E. Kincaid]

It was a couple miles south of Toluca IL around 8:15. Best lightning display I've seen in a long while.

My long bolts were taken in the same area about an hour later. It was an awesome display. Never seen such long bolts. Crazy. Hope to see them again.

 

[Joshua Nall]

I got these on Monday 5/7/12. The first good local lightning display of the year for me. Had the aperture a little too large for the more impressive crawler. The foreground was lit by some LED lights at the boat ramp where I parked. I am hoping to one day get a nice close CG hitting the water here.... have seen that twice before but never with a camera set up and ready.

 

[Stephen Levine]

I BOW TO THE LIGHTNING PHOTO MASTERS.

Geez, I thought mine had some flair to them. I feel as though I got 'pwned... lol

Well, might as well share mine to see how they compare, eh?

I can't really decide between these two as to which is my "Best"...

Wow! Your lightning over Pittsburgh is astounding.. have you thought of selling this one to key industries/corporate offices in Pittsburgh? I also like the other shot as well!

 

[Christopher E. Kincaid]

Here are a few from 6-30-12 west of Williamsville, IL and east of Athens, IL. It was crazy how much lightning there was that night. I left my spot only to return to it 3 more times as new storms developed over the same area. I blew a few of the shots trying to zoom in. I setup my camera and tripod outside the car and used my wired remote inside the car to stay "safe". I misjudged the horizon. Oh well. I probably got 30 or so usuable shots that night. Not bad for a drought. It seems to me that weaker storms sometimes make the best lightning. Maybe I am wrong or maybe that just applies to IL because the storms here seem to have such high bases.

This one I changed the temp to more of a blue than the usual purple or magneta. What do you think? Nice or too fake?