Lightning over Discovery Lake

David — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 07:06:56 +0000

Lightning over Discovery Lake, Columbia, Mo. | Canon 5D Mark II and 24-70mm f/2.8L lens @ 30mm; exposed 6 seconds @ f/8, ISO 800.

Last week, my friends Jakob, Calin, and Jamie called me up to join them on a small lake near Discovery Parkway in Columbia, Mo. to fish. Well, they fished. I fished for lightning photographs.

Unfortunately, while the picture above is tack sharp, it’s not quite satisfying. Later in the evening, I made another image that is far more pleasing–great color, great lightning strikes, including one on a cell phone tower–but is way, way out of focus when viewed at 100%. Interestingly, when sized for this blog, it’s hard to tell that it’s soft, so I’ll share it here:

Lightning strike on the cell tower, Discovery Lake, Columbia, Mo. | Canon 5D Mark II and 24-70mm f/2.8L lens @ 43mm; exposed 2 minutes, 36 seconds @ f/8, ISO 100.

A Dark and Stormy Night

David — Fri, 08 May 2009 22:35:23 +0000

Starting last night and not really ending until early this afternoon, a large storm system passed through Columbia. It was pretty severe at times: I lost power a multiple points last night, often regaining power just to lose it once more twenty seconds later. Unfortunately, the storms this morning produced pretty heavy rain, so I did not feel comfortable with following through with my original plan to drive out to St. Louis to visit Wild Bird Rehabilitation, the focus of a long-term project. I’ll be going tomorrow, instead.

However, the storm did provide the opportunity to photograph lightning from my balcony. Sadly, by the time I was really set for it, precipitation had finally reached my building so I had to move indoors quite quickly. The most interesting photo, really, was a 30 minute exposure of the patterns the lightning was producing on the walls of the bedroom of my apartment:

Canon 1D Mark II N & 16-35mm f/2.8 L II; exposed 30 minutes @ f/8, ISO 200

I would have used the 5D Mk. II for its superior noise performance, but its battery was dead.

Finally, a couple of other photographs I made that night:

blog | photography by David Kennedy » lightning

Lightning over Discovery Lake

A Dark and Stormy Night