Close thunderbolt encounter, a photo from Venice, Veneto

Photographer's Note

From the San Servolo island in Venice, I was photographing the city and the storm that was coming towards us. After already photographing with a wide angle lens (18mm) some of the thunderbolts at a slow shutter speed, I changed my subject and closed-up on this church, the "Chiese di Santa Maria della Salute", which is located exactly here. For that I used the full 300mm of my 75-300mm lens, rested the camera on a flat surface, and shot some pictures. In one of them I caught a thunderbolt, of course, just by pure chance. The probabilities of recording a thunderbolt in such a narrow angle of view is very, but very reduced; so I think this is a one-in-a-lifetime picture.
I corrected levels just a little bit and applied USM, nothing else.
A picture with the same settings but without the thunderbolt can be observed here. The difference can be compared, for the record.

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Critiques | Translate

tatadalou (7459) 2011-11-05 13:01

Hi Jurgen,
The flash provides an extraordinary color of water and sky and forms a nice contrast with the city. However, with the long exposure time, the lightning looks more like a wide overexposed white line, which lost much interest. A shorter time would have probably given a better picture. Similarly, the light in front draws the eye too.
Sincerely,
Delphine