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vitriolata — True Power
Published: 2004-08-07 04:23:10 +0000 UTC; Views: 1071; Favourites: 16; Downloads: 203
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Transalta's Keephills Generating Station [link]Two coal fired units putting out a total of 766MW. To put that in perspective, that's 12.8 million 60 watt light bulbs! Meanwhile, Mother Nature, just by rubbing some water particles together, producing hundreds of times more than that!
This was quite an interesting shoot, believe me. I come up to the plant with lightning going on behind, and set up low behind my car so as not to get struck by bad luck. As I'm happily shooting away I notice the lightning is now around me... and the wind has started to pick up. Just then I happen to lean back a bit, glance up, and FLASH CRACK! I swear I could see the air ionizing! That was too close! After that I packed up fast and got back in the car. About then it starts pouring rain, like sheets of rain, like in the movies. Nothing I've seen before. We've had some pretty crazy storms this year!
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Comments: 28
Very cool!!! I love how small and insignificant the power station is compared to the lightning. It really shows natures power.
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i've been looking on another site which has a topic about lightning photography...did you focus on infinity, or use hyperfocal distance?
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woah that reminds me of whne i lived in a hight building near the sea.. i could see the lightning in the distance in picth black ocean and bolts coming down.. some times 4 or 5 at the same time
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awsome capture. i love lightning it fascinates me. i was once camping and a huge thunder storm just like the one u spoke of was starting, you could feel the electricity in the air. as i was running back to an insulated pad that u sleep on lightnigh hit a tree maby 50 feet away. it sounded like a bomb exploded and it threw me on my feet. definatly a memorable expierence
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I'd love to capture lightning but unfortunately we don't get a lot of it over here
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nice capture, its my dream to get a nice close shot like this one, but i always ask my self if this lightning hit me, im i gonna look better after that !?
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i respect that you still use film, like myself, but i use it because of a lack of funds right now. hopefully next summer i will be able to spare about 1000 dollars. lightning shots amaze me because they are so off limits to me.. i cant find a tripod for my camera anywhere and ive been trying to "catch" lightning for a while. you always want what you cant have. great picture.
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What a chance! Kudos to you for sticking out the storm to grab that shot.
Closest I ever came to lightning was while driving through a torrential down pour. It hit the top of a utility pole twenty feet away. At that distance, it's amazingly loud. My arm hairs were on end.
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am a new photographer so cant tell u much bout the lighings the edge and etc.
all i can say is that picture is very clear and beautiful.
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Looks like that was either a long exposure or in mid day, looks cool
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wow great photo.. since you asked for advanced critique, my only complaint (but who cares) is that the photo is slightly over exposed, you could probably change that in photoshop if you wanted to.. not even over exposed, just the day time look is weird.
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It was sort of sunset, so the lighting was very strange. Truth be told I overexposed by about a stop just so I could have a longer exposure and end up wasting less film
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woah. really nice shot, it goes along with the whole power station theme too. all i have to say is maybe a white ballance adjustment.
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omg ... u fast shooter lol.. I've been looking for someone who's able to take a shot of lightning strike and i found it 
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Actually, what you do is set your camera up on a tripod and set it to have as long an exposure as possible, in this case around ten seconds. Then you hope lightning strikes in that time. I shot over a roll to get three that had lightning in them!
Thanks for the comment.
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awesome
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I really like this composition. I live in the mountains, with lots of trees, and whenever I have tried this the lightning seems to strike everywhere EXCEPT in front of the camera. It NEVER will strike in the middle of my frame. Additionally, lightning strikes the highest point around, and since the tops of the mountains are about the only place where I can get a good view, I feel like I am taking my life in my hands every time I try something like this. Hard to concentrate on composition when half your mind is on whether or not you are going to die and the other half is hyperaware of when your hair is starting to stand up.
Do you mind giving some technical information here? I'd like to know the exposure times and the ISO in particular. Did you push the film a little to boost the contrast or was that natural?
One thing: looking at this, I am seeing a lot of blurring and a little pixellization. I notice that this is an .art format file, which may be the problem. Any chance of reuploading this in a format that is a little less lossy, like .png? I can't tell if it is blurred because of the format and, if others are seeing this as I am, only you and God know what the grain is like.
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Well this was a fun adventure too, as my comments above allude to. I was fortunate though, the storm was behind the plant for a long enough time that I could get this shot.
Technical information? Well, I shot a lot, so I'd have to guess. It would be something like 10-15s, f11-16, likely on Fuji Superia 200. It may be on Reala 100... but I doubt it. No pushing here, although it seems to me I, again, may have given it +1ev exposure compensation. Not sure if I did for this particular shot. The contrast and blurring would be because of my cheap scan from a cheap print from a cheap photolab. The print looks pretty good in comparison (you can actually see detail in the field), and I'm sure a real print would be excellent. I'm hoping to get a film scanner sometime soon, but school is kind of important too!
.art? It's a jpeg! I usually save at a high enough quality to keep those pesky compression artifacts at bay, so no, I'd have to say the blur is scan related.
Thanks for the critique
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Well, some people have real trouble with .jpg files and LOTS of information gets lost when uploading to the inernet. Looks like you are one of those people. If the stuff you are posting looks good on your computer and looks kind of punky when uploaded, you need to switch formats. I've been using .png, one of the standards that is much less lossy, for my uploads. I've had good results with it. I just convert the saved file to .png, upload it, and then convert it back when I am done (to save room on my computer). That way I get a good post and I don't use up my hard drive. You ought to try it.
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oh baby! I can't believe you got this shot! And without leaving the lens open? I'm stunned.
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Errr actually I did! I believe I used 15s at f/16. Something like that. I had to shoot just under two rolls to get three shots with lightning in them. It was quite an active storm!
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