The photographer is looking for thoughtful feedback on the image as a whole, especially around the areas noted below.
Feedback Focus: Artistic / Expressive
About This Image
One of those really lucky nights at the Montezuma pass in southern Arizona. Storms passing through making the Milky way visible, lightning bolts gslore and a Perseid meteor to boot!
I was making a Timelapse and so have about 1500 images from that night
Feedback Requested
This is a landscape turned portrait since there is a manmade tower on the left
Technical Details
Camera: NIKON Z 9
Lens: NIKKOR Z 14-24mm f/2.8 S
Focal length: 24mm
Shutter speed: 4s
Aperture: f/2.8
ISO: 5000
Processing software: LR
Major adjustments: nothing significant
Blending/stacking:
Other notes: short exposure to maximize star sharpness - exposure 1.5 stops increase with Denoise used
You’ve been having some great opportunities lately, Karl. Getting all three together is amazing. I notice that when you cropped to remove the tower, you still have a chunk of the surrounding fence, which, if your ethics allow, you might want to remove. I think the brightest parts of the clouds could stand to come down a trifle. Even if they’re not blown, they are so much brighter than the rest of the frame that they kind of lock my eyes in place. Still a stunning image as posted.
The processing looks very nice, but I do agree with @Dennis_Plank regarding that bit of fence on the left and the brightness of the thunder cloud. It always amazes me the amount of intra-cloud lightning that occurs.
Wonderful catch! I think the MW is very nicely processed but I agree with @Dennis_Plank and @Preston_Birdwell about the brightness of the cloud, although it probably was that bright relative to the sky. I love the soft light in the distant hills where the bolt is striking.
I’m not clear, as you mention 1500 exposures, if you managed to catch the lightning and the meteor in the same frame or if this is a composite?
Nice job on the revised version, Karl. You might want to note that a recent change to the site is the addition of a button at the top of your original post that you can click on to upload a revised version. It puts it on the top, labels it as by revision number and gives you a blank to tell what you changed. Since it becomes part of the original post it’s easy for people to toggle back and forth between revisions.
Karl: What a spectacular show and equally special capture. I’ll second @Dennis_Plank’s advice regarding revisions. You can still do it or at the least edit your title to let folks know you’ve made some changes so they can revisit. >=))>
