Safe Harbor

On a recent trip to Grand Cayman’s East End, we saw many storms passing us by in the distance. For two nights, these storms would travel SE slowly perhaps 5-8 miles away. The first night, I blew the exposures. The second night, I learned my lessons and got the exposures dialed in. This is a composite of 3 shots for the sky and two for the foreground/boats. Not a perfect shot by any means, but difficult to get right even as a composite.

What technical feedback would you like if any?

Please provide any guidance/advice regarding technicals of post-processing.

What artistic feedback would you like if any?

Do the boats add or detract from the image? Does their “going out of the frame” make their presence too tense?

Pertinent technical details or techniques:

(If this is a composite, etc. please be honest with your techniques to help others learn)

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Well Jim,

Kudos on getting the exposure dialed in because I think you nailed it. The overall image looks very real. Even though you probably would not be able to see the stars you do in the image while you have those lighting bolts striking with those brightness levels. In any case, the impression of what one would experience is captured.

I’m not sure where the light is coming from to light the boats, but with them pointed exit stage left and with the lightning and storms primarily behind them and to the right gives me the impression that they are trying to high tail it out of there. A good tension so to speak.

I really can’t speak as to your compositing, as you did not give any details on how you accomplished it.

Wow, Jim. This is a high impact shot. I don’t know how those highlights will print, but online, it looks fabulous. The light is really interesting and I like the shadow on the lit side of the boats. It makes it feel as though the sun is setting with a storm in the east. Of course, the stars wouldn’t be out, but realism isn’t the goal here, more the effect of being there that evening (i.e. time brings the scene together).

I would be inclined to clone out or crop out a few stars right at the top edge. For me, the stars are a bonus, so we need enough to justify them, but not if they shine on the edge of the frame.

Nonetheless, really cool.
ML

Hi Jim - Love those clouds and lighting - what a sight to see and IMO you captured it nicely. Bonus that you got a second try. No comment on the technical side - no experience on composite shots here. The boats are fine by me but agree with Youssef on their lighting especially the one far left seems un-naturally bright.
Cheer

Jim,

Wow, this is some spectacular image! Kudos for the effort - and those efforts have been well rewarded!

Your composite and crafting of this final result is pretty impressive. What makes this not even want to question anything, are how the reflections in the water line up with what’s happening in the sky. Wonderful!

The boats are a great addition, although it’s quite easy to fall in to the traditional pitfalls and compositional paradigms… Like in wildlife images - I’m wishing for more room in front of the boats - giving them room to move (like they’re poised to sail away from the storm, as pointed out already.) But of course rules are meant to be broken and I forgive you for that one… :roll_eyes:

And purely a curiosity perspective, would like to understand the reflected light source on the boats. Not all that important - but probably lights from your location on shore? again, no biggie.

In the end, this is simply a phenomenal image. Congrats!

Lon

Thanks for your comments @Youssef_Ismail. I failed to mention that the light is coming from the shore. I was on the 2nd story of a seaside hotel.

@Marylynne_Diggs…so the stars were actually there and real that night. Do you mean that during the flash of lightning, one wouldn’t see the stars? When the lightning was occuring and was that far away and faint, I thought I could still see them up high.

Thanks @Ynez_Slaymaker…agree with you that the brightness of the one on the left looks a little out of place and I can burn that down. I think it was closest to the light source.

@Lon_Overacker…your comments are always valuable and appreciated. As above, the light source was from the hotel I was staying. If I were to really alter the nature of the scene, I guess I could “content aware flip” the boats to facing in. I just thought to leave them as they were in the scene.

Ah, I was not thinking about the lightning lighting up the ground but not the sky. Since it was a composite I figured the images were taken at different times. I missed the part about the hotel lights so I figured incorrectly that was a setting sun, hence the comment on the stars not being “out” at sunset.
ML

That is one dramatic sky with the lightning strikes , clouds and stars, Jim. The processing looks great to me and the light on the boats looks very natural. Of course it would have been great to have the boats facing the opposite direction, but with all the other sweet stuff going on in the frame it certainly is not a deal breaker. Really nice job on this.

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This is beautifully dramatic. Processing looks really good and so does the drama. Nature at work.

Jim, this is an amazing shot! I would love to know the technical specs on how you did this for each of the shots… I know each situation is different, but I live in an area with lots of thunder and lightning (NWPAC coast of Costa Rica), and have not been able to master the basics of capturing the lightning and storm effects. If you have time, can you share camera settings?
Thank you for the image and the potential that can be captured with a composite!

Hey @EJ_Jewett…the thing I didn’t know the first night of shooting was how bright the lightning images were…I was using a higher ISO on the first night and the images were all blown out. I forgot that lightning is as bright as the sun (virtually), and I had to correct for its brightness.

Because I wanted a low noise image, my first priority was to lower the ISO…my lightning shots were shot at ISO 250. The aperture setting was wide open and I was using a 24-70 f/2.8 at 24mm with aperture at f/2.8. The shutter speed was 3 seconds and I had the camera set on continuous shooting mode, and hoped for the best. attached is a copy of the raw shot of one of the lightning strikes you see in the image.

Some of my shots were at longer shutter speeds - up to 15 seconds, but I kept the ISO and aperture the same.

The moon was out for this as well, leading to the lighting from above, especially of the clouds to the right in the image.

The boat shots were at higher ISO with shorter shutter speeds to minimize their movement.

I hope this helps! Please DM me for more details if you want. Best of luck to you!

AMAZING shots!

Thank you for the information. I am mostly night blind, so I cannot see what effects any night shots have until I am in a well lit room. I always seem to go for the longer timeframe… And you got that awesome image at 3 seconds…

Now I have some “know” success information! I really appreciate you sharing this with me.

EJ

EJ Jewett

EJ’s Ark Art Photos

Playa Potrero, GUA CR

88711-4727

ej@spacelink.com

ej1.jewett@gmail.com

Jim, this image is simply amazing, the impact and drama of this are off the charts. I think having he moon out helped the look of the clouds a lot , but your processing of this shot is masterful too. I especially like the way you processed the highlights and shadows in the water. I’m glad you got two cracks at this, it allowed you to really nail this concept.

I love this image as presented, it is quite an achievement. But I can also see a second, different interpretation of this image. If your ethics allow it, I would consider cloning away the boats, and make a second image that emphasizes the lightening and clouds without any competition from the boats. Very subjective comment on my part I admit, but IMO the lightening and clouds are so powerful here that I think they could well stand on their own.

Wow! Thanks @Ed_McGuirk …that means a lot coming from you! And it’s interesting you said what you did about cloning out the boats as the thought occurred to me as well. I might give that a try. Thanks again fro stopping by to comment.