Got my best close-up lightning capture just before dawn this morning. Was awoken by thunder at around 5am and saw on the radar that it would be a home in Palmerston within 10 minutes or so. I decided to try and get ahead of it a bit and rushed into town and ended up at Fishermens Wharf.
Got a few ok shots as it came in but nothing really good. I had horizontal drizzle straight at me wetting the lens and decided to pack up. I was just driving out when I noticed the rain eased a bit and a big bolt landed to the north of me. I grabbed the tripod out again, didn't even extend the legs and setup as quick as I could and got this one good bolt before the really heavy rain chased me back into the car. I could put the camera side-on to the wind for this shot so water drops on the lens wasn't such an issue.
Wound the aperture all the way to F18 as I knew it would be very bright - and the exposure was perfect. Luckily it was as I was somehow accidentally in jpeg mode and not RAW as I normally am - forgot to check that as I rarely change that setting!
At F18 it sure highlighted all the dust spots on my sensor with the big depth of field - so I had to clean up the image somewhat - also added a bit of contrast. This shot is not cropped except for a bit of tilt to fix a slightly crooked horizon.
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