Lightning Ahoy!

[darb]

well, it won me 5th place so i guess its worth a mention.

Anyho, the story behind it and a couple of others, is that we were down south at a friends beach house with "just the boys" ... on the drive down some impressive storms were rolling in on the way down, and as we settled into our 3rd bourbon, a front started to approach, so i tore off down the beach with d70 and manfrotto and stop atop a sand dune, doing constant 1 and 2 minute bulb exposures, cycling and cycling the shots waiting to capture ... wind was a bit of an issue so some shots got blurred but the tripod is fairly sturdy.

There is something stupid about standing on a bare dune, with a 6ft tripod, facing a fierce electrical front ... my nerve ran out when bolts started hitting the BEACH about 1km north of me, scurried back to the safety of the beach house

All shot NEF, then PP'd with signifigant saturation boosting and levels etc. At 68 seconds and sometimes less they were a bit dark without the PP, but with wind and CCD heating, i avoided anything longer. (and didnt run NR jobs as i didnt want the lag)

"power trip" was taken from under an eave, on the balcony as the front really approached ... for a bunch of mates who arent into photography, the enthusiasm from them was outstanding, there were probably 50 different bolts that were striking all around us ... the worst part of this story is that as it landed, i ran out of batteries. Talk about amateur, no charger was brought with. (and id forgotten to charge my spare). The camera was soaking wet by the end of it, but hey what a bit of water to go with the usual dust, snow, sand that my d70 gets belted with. Damn good body i say

With the first one, i was actually wondering if anyone things a Pano Aspect Ratio crop would suit or not.

Natures Anger ;





Colour of Life
Colour of life has blue light from lightning, orange from coastal lights, and the red in the clouds is the coastal lights after going through the clouds ... looks like only the red spectrum got through? ;





Power Trip ;







And a few otehrs that didnt quite make the cut ;


"Brooding"

[Raskill]

Was a fan of these on DPreview, and still a fan. Can't wait for our storm season to start to give it a shot myself.

[Mal]

darb, I loved this picture, great to see the others that you got as well. Man alive that would have been hairy out in that weather!!!

[darb]

just dont get killed !

[PiroStitch]

it's raining in melbourne right now but no lightning but it's cool i don't have my camera with me

[darb]

there wasnt much rain with these fronts, that was the great thing about it ... as for melbourne, you guys are in for some serious snow dumpage over the next few days i believe ... which is great, coz im headed to mt hotham on sunday for a week, wheeeeeee

[kipper]

Yep, it's starting now I believe Darb. The rain has come, but you can feel the icey cold front coming with it. They said that snow is due tomorrow on near by hills and I believe the temperature is going to be around 5-10degC tomorrow.

I should of just bought a one way ticket to Sydney. This weather here sucks

[stormygirl]

Very impressive pics Darb. I still remember the original thread you posted them in (and knew exactly who took the pic for the comp!!).

I can't wait for the storm season, hope to go on a chase or 2 with the D70 in tow and see what I come up with!! Also looking forward to the prospects of snow in Melbourne tomorrow .

Congrats on getting it in the newspaper too!!

[Killakoala]

it's raining in melbourne right now but no lightning

Hmmm, why do i find this so believable?

Great shots all round Brad. I love lightning shots and yours, especially the comp one, are great.

[Geoff]

it's raining in melbourne right now but no lightning but it's cool i don't have my camera with me

Ummm, it's raining in melbourne right now? How unusual

[sirhc55]

Darb - they are all excellent shots and my favourite would be brooding - simply because the title fits the scene

[Slider]

Darb, Some fantastic shots there. The colours in the 2nd one are terrific. Well done.

[spartikus]

Top shots darb - I was keen for some more storms this year, been to clear lately

And as I said before, congrats on the ST entry

[darb]

cheeers y'all

[MattC]

Excellent shots Darb!!!! Pano aspects? I would be fairly reluctant to crop anything from those images.

Cheers

Matt

[MattC]

Brad, Thinking about your question regarding pano aspect on the first image, so I had a little play. Cropping to a pano aspect did not work for me. I felt nothing should be thrown away. In the end I cropped about 25 pixels from the top edge (just the really dark bits) of the (800x533) image and resized the image to 1200 pixels wide leaving the height alone - I just stretched it some. I figured that it would be possible to get away with that because there is nothing in the image that would give the game away.

Maybe a little outside the square.

Cheers

[darb]

sweet as .. i guess the upper parts of the dark gray cloud is quite atmospheric and moody and gives some direction for the eye to follow