The Convergence

Sweet image Nic. I really like the comp and the colors and lightning are awesome. From a composition standpoint this one really works for me. I like how the eye is first drawn to the lupine in the foreground, then to the tree on the horizon, then to the lightning. Well done.

That's just ridiculous. How long was the exposure? focus stack?

Nicolaus,

Wow, the thumb doesn't even come close to doing this one justice. What a unique setup and combination of elements. The sky and lightning are so surreal. The lupine and plants in the foreground almost have a studio look to them; like fill flash or some other non-natural lighting. I'm not saying I don't like that, it just looks different and adds to the uniqueness of this image. I think this is an amazing capture. And it's one where offering a critique like crops and such would just do this a disservice. This is quite awesome.

Lon

Very nice combination of colors. Light is well controlled and is very nice. I also like the cool colors of the flowers in the foreground. The composition with the point of view is well chosen.

Nicolas - Some crazy light you've captured. The left lower corner looks a little blank compared to the rest, but minor compared to the drama in the image. Maybe a slight crop off the bottom. WOw!

And lightning, too! What more could you ask for. This is absolutely gorgeous, however to my eye a somewhat lighter sky will look more natural. Looking forward to the cloud shot!

Guy

This is totally surreal! Love teh composition here, everything just seems to work here!

Really nice work..the clouds look fantastic here!

The lightning really takes this over the top. Great capture of the different elements.

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

Aaron, it's a 9 image blend. I really don't see how people can capture these at f/16 with only two shots..especially with such close subject matter. Then again it could be the 16-35 m2 that makes it so difficult...it definitely has CA issues with backlit horizons. It took me 6 images alone at f/16, iso 100, 1.6 seconds to get sharp dof from the foreground to horizon section. The flowers and leaves of the lupine were as close as I could get them. It makes me really wish I had a 17mm TSE. CS5 sucks at stacking images like this, even with auto align and manually adjusting lens distortion...it just won't work from what I have tried. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I've read all the help and tutorials I can find and large sections still are off or severely blurred or darkened in odd and distorting ways. It all had to be blended by hand and adjusted manually (the wacom and pen are my best friends on these types of shots). Luckily for me, there was no wind for a short amount of time or this would have been impossible.

The sky is a combination of 3 images for three separate series of strikes. All were taken at f/18, iso 50, 2 seconds. Had I not done this, it would have been impossible to capture the lightning as the sun was lighting up these clouds like you can't imagine. This was taken on the backside of a hill so you can picture what it looked like on the other side. The horizon in the basin west and below was almost completely devoid of clouds which made for such a colorful sunset on these low, flat clouds. This is the bottom end of a massive thunderhead which we were lucky enough to be directly under but somehow out of the way of the sheet of rain and hail it was dropping.

I know there are mixed opinions on this type of processing, but I don't see how it would have been possible to capture the scene any other way. It was an amazing event to witness...so much lightning in fact that my wife and I had to go hide in a nearby depression after I took my last shot. The lightning was everywhere for a bit there, and much closer than what you see in this photograph. Had to set the tripods a distance away and huddle apart from each other on the balls of our feet. Nothing like being in the middle of a severe lightning storm on the side of a hill...just glad we were not on the top of it. ;]

Lon the foreground is probably a combination of the weird lighting and my processing, no flash though. I do have some portable studio equipment I am thinking of taking out some time now that you mention it. The wind here can be almost impossible to take still shots sometimes. And I may have oversaturated things a bit. I did some dodging on the flowers, sage, and portions of the lupine leaves.

If people think it's too much I can go back and rework this a bit...maybe darken things here and there and desaturate some?

Thanks for any advice.

Bizarre but effective disconnect between foreground and background. Conceptually the image flies apart, but visually it holds together well and is quite well composed.

This is just spectacular and you're processing flawless.
Can't wait to see the cloud shot

Easily your most amazing photo, Nick. That's saying a lot. One of the best landscape images I have ever seen!

Really weird and wonderful. Gorgeous shot for sure and the execution is brilliant. However it's also rather bizarre, that idyllic foreground looks so out of place with all that drama in the sky.

That is an amazing combo of elements, Nicolaus. Looks scary to be out in this, but what a fantastic image you brought back. Processing looks good to me, but I'm only on a laptop. Remarkable image even here.

Nicolaus,

I don't think it's too much at all. I think it's certainly unique and the light and color help it that way. Honestly, I don't think I wouldn't change anything.

Lon

I've always dreamed of photographing lightnings and your fabolous image just shatters my dreams. Not even my wild imagination could have come up with something like this. It's a fantastic piece of work!

Definitely an attention-getter! The scene is nice enough even without the lightning, but that really takes it to the highest level. Superb capture and the post-processing looks very good to me.

You know, I've had some of the same problems trying DOF blends in CS5. It's very frustrating and like you, I continually wonder if I'm just doing something wrong. I end up having to take the file created by the program and then layer it over the individual shots, using masks to then paint in "corrections" in the various areas CS5 has botched. In a way I'm glad to hear it's not just me . . . maybe it's good cause to finally check out Helicon Focus instead.

Thanks for the input guys. It's great to see this image received so well. I was like a kid out there when this happened. I think my wife thought I had lost my mind as I was yelling and laughing throughout the entire sunset. It just got better and better. Watching events like this unfold is what I enjoy most about being outdoors. They are rare, but when you witness them, they blow your mind.

Phil, I don't think you'll have much better luck with Helicon Focus. Most image stacking tech is based on the assumption you don't have any moving objects. Static images are easy to blend, but throw in some grass or trees or anything that might move even a little and software will not be able to compensate for it.

Personally, I'm foregoing the software for a while until it gets better and will work on improving hand blending techniques. I noticed on this image that it's actually easier to blend the same image in multiple layers in order to compensate for lens distortion, especially between focal points around the lupines. I'm racking my brain trying to work out an easier way to do this...just can't figure it out yet.

That's a crazy shot. The moment is incredible, but I don't know how would I stay in the open to get this kind of shot. And the tree completes the image.

This is awesome Nic. Looks like excellent work on your processing too. Beautiful.

Nick Bristol
Lone Rock, WI

Nicolaus,
Fabulous shot & great blending - the wind can really make blending a pain as you have described. As a tilt-shift lens user, I can tell you it would have not done much good in this shot. The height of the plane of focus close to the camera is very small. So anything that is close and vertical such as trees (or the tall flowers in your scene) will have a small horizontal slice section in focus and the remainder out. It's great for a field of low flowers, or any other scene where the closest elements are in the same horizontal plane.

Wick, thank you so much for the advice, you just saved me a butt load of cash. I was reading about tilt shifts a bit more last night and I was starting to wonder...you have confirmed my suspicions. Guess I'll stick with the blending.

Wow! This is really dramatic! Great comp and light

Very unique image Nicolaus. The color and light are very special including the lightning bolt. I can see why you call this crazy...... amazing scene.

Wow - this is just wonderful.

Interesting...
I have mixed feelings, alhtough overall i love it (im a sucker for storm scenes)
Nits: the lightning looks funky on account of the multiple exposures--but i understand the catch 22 of having only one strike (cause then no one notices it)
The lupines feel too far to the right, altho the tree up top balances to some extent.
Overall, a winner, though im not sure the comp matches all the technical effort here.

Nicolaus,

Very cool shot. Easily one of the most unique I have ever seen. I especially love the drama with the clouds converging into the lightning, in a barren field with a sole tree.

My only thought is that I lose the feeling of depth when the yellow flowers flash before my eyes. It doesn't feel like the expansive scene I would be so excited to witness.

Really nice work though. A fine piece of art.