Lightning storm over the Pine Grove Hills, Lyon County, Nevada.
This storm started as some nice clouds at sunset with a little rain coming down, but the clouds consolidated over time to become a more energetic cell with frequent lightning. I kept shooting it well into the night, and ended up with a time-lapse sequence of a few thousand shots.
This is a composite image of many of the images from the event, showing both the lightning strikes and the stars as they emerged. To see the time-lapse video, here is is over on Vimeo:
Lightning Storm Formation Over Bald Mountain from Jeff Sullivan on Vimeo.
I had uploaded some quick single and composite images from this sequence previously, but my father wanted a large print for Christmas, so I’ve finally gotten around to producing a better version of the composite.
Fortunately with time-lapse shooting you have a little extra time, since I was with Lori Hibbett, Nicole Sullivan and Thomas Sullivan camping on a mountaintop across the valley from this storm, and I had to manage steaks cooking over the campfire in addition to multiple cameras shooting at different focal lengths.
See more in my Nevada album on Flickr.
In the last few years I’ve posted dozens of photography tutorials on my +Blogger blog… including ones on on how to produce both time-lapse sequences and star trails images. Just search for “technique tip” and another keyword to find the one you want: www.JeffSullivanPhotography.com
Google+: Reshared 37 times
Comments
Spectacular! Truly a Sign of the presence of an earlier Earth atmosphere 'back' per our planets bodily phase..Like A Woman…
thunders..:)
awesome
Ufff.
زیباوعجیب
Wonderful capture and excellent processing +Jeff Sullivan! And a wonderful time-lapse too!
fantastic , thank you Jeff Sullivan .
Oh my god
Very very nice
Fabulous!
stupenda
A striking sequence Jeff.
Wow! A stunning shot of nature's power and beauty!
Beautiful photographic capture Jeff! I was wondering, as it appears that you exposed for some time as i note the star trails. May I ask how you kept the 'noise' down or reduced it in this long exposure of what? Maybe 5 minutes? Thanks for any info. -Mark Seibold Artist-Astronomer-Photographer-Writer
Hi Jeff, I also decided to ask a question about your photo, so I edited my original response. Thanks again, -Mark
+Mark Seibold This is a composite of dozens of 20 second shots. I used the free StarStaX app to combine them:
http://www.jeffsullivanphotography.com/blog/2011/05/25/creating-star-trail-images/
Then in Photoshop elements I used layer masking to blend back in parts of single exposures to mask where the composite image had become a little "choppy" from the separate exposures.
Noise varies from shot to shot, so it effectively goes away when you stack multiple images of the same exposure. Rendering the star trails as well was a nice bonus.
magnifico!!
A beauty +Jeff Sullivan !
Stunning!
nice effect
Mind-blowing!
Amazing!!!
Wow.!!!…Amazing…Picture.
great as always
Wow.-what a picture..phenomenally!!
Whoa!!!!! AMAZING!!!!
wowwww!!!!!!!
+Jeff Sullivan Beautiful capture. Love your work. Would you like to come and shoot in the Napa Valley?
Fabolious Jeff
Wow! Literally striking! Leave it to the Eastern Sierra, and your expertise, to get a shot like this.
An amazing capture!
incredible !!!! superb shot
I like the faint star trails in the shot
amazing shot!
Awesome
Is this a single shot?…….nooooo, its a composite!
+Jēkabs Zalte It's a composite only in the sense of showing a long period of the storm through multiple consecutive exposures (analogous to a long exposure). Nothing in the image has been added from any other time and nothing in the image has been moved from exactly where it occurred.
Great !
its so cool and inspiring
One of my favorite from you! Happy New Year +Jeff Sullivan
One of the best I've seen of the time lapse lightning images.
OMG!!!! tz amazing……
Absolutely gorgeous!