Lightning On The Horizon

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We had a few relatively big thunderstorms out west last night, and I wanted some night shots of lightning.

[singlepic id=12 w=500 h=333 float=none]

I grabbed my camera bag and tripod, hopped into the car, and drove about a mile up the road to a little bit higher ground. I originally intended to shoot with the 17mm Tokina lens, but quickly discovered that the storms were so far away, that the 70-200 F4L, zoomed all the way to 200mm worked much better.

Since this was one of my first attempts at photographing lightning at night, and it was really a last minute decision to go, I didn't really get any of the "dramatic", sharp images that I think will really be display worthy. I'd like to put a little more thought into the foreground, and the camera settings. These shots were taking at ISO800 F6.3 with an 8 second exposure. (not sure if that was ideal).

That being said, the reason I'm making a post here is that one of the pictures was somewhat interesting, once I started editing, and zoomed in on the horizon. (100% crop of the above image below):

[singlepic id=13 w=500 h=333 float=none]

In addition to the two cloud to ground lighting bolts, check out that interesting cloud formation that extends all the way to the ground.

This shot was taken at about 9:50pm (June 2nd) looking to the North West from Fort Hood (just east of Clarke Road/Tank Destroyer Dr).

At the time, there was still a Tornado watch in effect for the counties to our immediate west, although the cells were weakening, and the watch would be allowed to expire shortly. I didn't get to see the radar until about 20 minutes later. Looking at the loop of the SRM, there might have been some rotation in that area at around that time, but I can't be sure.

This is mostly likely just some low hanging clouds, or maybe some dust getting kicked up in the field. But, it was dark, and there's really no people or towns out in that direction to report severe weather ... who knows, maybe I accidentally got my first tornado picture since moving to Texas.