Alameda Island - SF Sunset

[maddogmurph]

Some thunder clouds rolled into San Francisco this weekend, actually quite a rare event.  I'm curious about thoughts on treatment.  Also I'm not sure that cityscapes qualify as landscapes... so this might be misplaced?

[maddogmurph]

And a lightning bolt, which I'm curious about as well, this was captured at F4, exposure 1/1250th, ISO 12400 - are these better as time lapses with a much slower shutter speed?  I was having a hell of a time trying to catch these bolts... and missed one that would have been spectacular.  I suppose I could just google it, but I'm interested in hearing people experiences shooting lightning.

[Paulo Bizarro]

I think they work well either in colour or B&W, depending on what you want to convey (drama enhanced by the colours, or a more broody and dark feeling).

In #2, I think that the frame is too close to the city skyline, perhaps a bit more room in the bottom?

The lightning bolt is very good.

[brandtb]

The second image (color) in the group is really great...and great take on the S.F. area...not typically seen no? That said, I think the darks in lower left are way to crushed and in the middle ground there seems to be a cobalt/ultramarine blue cast to some of the water areas (at least on my calibrated monitor)...which is REALLY distracting and pulls the overall image quality way down. You might try pulling up the shadows a bit overall as well.  /B

[sdwilsonsct]

And a lightning bolt, which I'm curious about as well, this was captured at F4, exposure 1/1250th, ISO 12400 - are these better as time lapses with a much slower shutter speed?  I was having a hell of a time trying to catch these bolts... and missed one that would have been spectacular.  I suppose I could just google it, but I'm interested in hearing people experiences shooting lightning.

I have had some luck leaving the shutter open for 15 s and shooting continuously until some bolts are captured.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/59795859@N00/15063110375/in/set-72157630103924810

Might not work as well over a city.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

You have a real winner in #4. The others are suboptimally processed, to say the least.

The bolt shot is spectacular and rather original in composition and the reachness of darkness, if that makes sense. Perhaps adding something like 10-20% extra exposure would make it easier to see that beauty in the darkness?

[maddogmurph]

What I'm dealing with is underexposure.  Opening the shadows unfortunately hasn't seemed to do much for the treating of the cobalt water.  And the foreground was a cement parking lot basically, hence the framing excluding this uninteresting feature.