This is unfortunately going to post the day following when the photos were taken, unless I type really fast. But the lightning app on my smutphone alerted me to the possibility of a light show, and I trekked the many kilometers (less than 2) down to the waterfront to see what was happening.
First off, I’ll note that the app is notoriously inaccurate for this area; strikes were occurring nowhere near where they’d been plotted, and while one apparently hit a few hundred meters away across the main road, the only sign of it was thunder that clearly came from many kilometers off. That said, the wide vista of the waterfront allowed me to discover where the cell really was, and it was in view. Thus, the first lightning pics from the new location.
That’s the same island (and boats) seen in the previous post, ever so indistinctly, and this took a full minute to expose, but at least a bolt did occur in there, and told me to re-aim a little.
So, a small note here: the glare from the left side of the frame comes not only from the lights that line the waterfront walk, but one of the sailboats that was strung with holiday lights. I’d framed it in but for the longer exposures, it simply blew out way overexposed, so I left it just outside the frame. However, the storm was moving in that direction and I had to change my tactics, but not before another capture.
Despite the appearance of most of the bolts, this one blew out entirely overexposed, which happens – you lecture and cajole and even try reverse-psychology, but lightning gonna do what it wants. However, we’ll take a closer look at that particular strike.
I played with the Curves, and there’s no detail to be brought up from the bolt itself, nor did it leave a distinct reflection in the water, but it provided enough light to illuminate details on the island as well as a hint of fog out over the water again, and yes, I may be chasing that more tonight/this morning.
The cell was moving in that direction and I wanted the lights of the sailboat anyway, so I switched to ten-second exposures, no longer having to get the sailboats or the island exposed. This meant that I wasted a lot more frames, because the bolts were only occurring every 90-120 seconds or so, but trying to skip too many frames that might fall in-between can easily mean that an odd strike gets missed, and take it from me: they’re always spectacular. Though I admit that what I saw in the milliseconds in person and what was captured in camera had different levels of drama to them. While this one seems almost intertwined with the sailboat itself, the actual bolt is many kilometers off, producing only the barest rumble of thunder.
But since the entire shooting session lasted only 21 minutes and I captured several distinct bolts, I’m cool with it. It was also amazingly warm and I didn’t even have a jacket on, though I came prepared and it was in the car (to say nothing of the rain ponchos in the camera bag.) I can live with that.