Hello everyone never really posted any pictures on this site, but I captured this picture the other evening out the front door of my house. Please tell me what you think and how I could of made it better. I am just getting started in picture taking. Taken with a canon 10D. Thanks Dave

The bolt itself takes up so little of the frame, but it is dramatic in ways. There is little definition throughout the photo, except for in the form of shadows, which adds an errie aspect to this shot.

But, I think that if the bolt was a little larger or more powerful that this shot would turn from good to amazing.

To make it better? It is hard to follow lightning. A lot of lightning shots are about being in the right place at the right time. Patience is also rewarded.

There is contrast with your dark and your bolt, but not enough. That would make this shot much better.

Crop out some of the black portion at the bottom of the frame to move the lightning away from the center line.

You might be able to enhance the sky (color/contrast) a bit in Photoshop (darken = select the sky, duplicate layer, set blending mode to multiply. Contrast = reselect the sky, create a curves adjustment layer and play around. If you don't like the changes, you can delete the extra layer and adjustment layer to get back to your original image.

I like how the road leads right to the bolt.

This picture is good because the lightning hits the road (or at least it seems so); if it had hit anywhere else it would be weaker. I think you didn't expose enough, overall the picture should have been brighter. This would have no real effect on the lightning itself because it would no longer "been around" during most of the exposure. So at night during a lightning storm, open your shutter and wait for lightning to hit. Don't close the shutter immediately after the lightning strikes; maybe you'll capture more rods, too.

The exact duration how long to open the shutter is up to experimentation and hangs on many factors. Just check the image display after a capture!

Hi Dave,

This is a pretty eerie image all by itself. Catching a bolt is a good feat. I hope you don't mind if I played with it. I will delete it if you do mind. What I did was crop, raised the shadows with Photoshop highlight/shadows tool, cloned out a few distracting items, then applied a 100% deep blue filter.

Pam