Night photography: Lightning over vehicles, nacelle, and detritus
The Paul's Junkyard night photography workshop got off to an electrifying start last night. Troy Paiva and I went to check out what was new in the yard, and ended up photographing during an intense lightning storm over the Mojave. Daytime temperatures were around 100 degrees in Lancaster -- the temperature gauge still said 80 degrees at midnight.
The lightning photo above is composed of six stacked exposures of 2 minutes at f/8 ISO 400 with an Olympus 18mm lens on a Canon 5D Mark II. I kept the exposure time short to catch the moon when it occasionally came out of the clouds, and because it was so hot (heat effects sensor noise). The stacking technique for the cumulative 12 minute exposure kept the noise down, gave me lighting options for the foreground, lengthened the star trails, and allowed multiple lightning bolts to accumulate. Fingers crossed for more great weather tonight!