Lightning and Fireworks

I've got a couple of night shots for this week's Skywatch Friday entry. First, here's one of my first lightning captures of the summer, taken this past Thursday evening. The streaks of light at the bottom are cars on a road, as this was a long exposure. I trimmed, scaled, and sharpened it using the free GIMP photo editing software.

Also, here are a couple of fireworks of a different kind, captured handheld on July 4th, at the Air Force Academy display. I used my 50mm lens, opened up all the way to f/1.4, so I could get short enough exposures to shoot without a tripod.

For me one of the highlights of the evening was hearing the orchestra play the famous 1812 Overture before the fireworks started, complete with real cannons (if you're not familiar with the music, Tchaikovsky scored the overture with real cannon fire). Hearing it like that is not an everyday occurrence, and one nice benefit to having major military installations nearby! (The photo on the right is one of the cannons firing.)

For more of my lightning photos, click on the Lightning tag below this post or on the right of the blog.