Lightning Storm

Lightning peeking out of a cloud formation (see larger image)

A recent trip out to Cedar Key, FL for a weekend saw a fortunate (if short-lived) opportunity to photograph a lightning storm passing near the shoreline at night. I've never really spent any time attempting to photograph lightning before, because I've always found myself in a less-than-desirable environment for it. So even though I didn't get that dramatic thick bolt reaching to the ground, I was happy to get what I got.




The photo below, which is probably the best of the few that I got, is a photo of the Seabreeze in Cedar Key, taken from the deck of the Black Dog. It was shot with a Canon EOS 5D Mark III using a Canon EOS 24-105 f/4 L USM lens set at 24mm and f/4.0.

I would have normally stopped it down a little, but I was propping the camera up against a wooden railing and adjusting the vertical angle by wedging a finger between the camera and the railing. With an exposure of 8 seconds at ISO 800, it was already prone to motion blur.

The lightning casts a purplish light, similar to the image above, when coming straight off the camera, but the long exposure combined with the sodium lights everywhere caused the Seabreeze to have that awful bright yellow cast, so I adjusted the white balance to compensate a little.  I was going to limit the adjustment to just the building, but it turns out I liked the resulting blue of the sky, so I left it that way.

Lightning over the Seabreeze in Cedar Key, FL (see larger image)

I'm not sure I'm 100% sold on it as is though, I may keep messing with it. Maybe bring up the highlights in the building...