Lightning, San Francisco Bay Bridge

I've been trying to figure how to get lightning shots, how did you do it? great shot.

Lightning storms are rare in San Francicso so I jumped on this

opportunity Monday night.

Best photo I can remember of the Bay Bridge, which is less photographed than the famous Golden Gate. Is this shot taken from the Oakland side, or the SF side? My compliments!

Excellent shot Laura.

 

You managed to place a lot of "favorites" in this shot of yours; cityscapes, sunsets, night scenes, lightnings and last but not least, good taste.

 

Bravo!

Nice lightning shot :) ... Good work

Outstanding

The buildings ,the bridge and the sky are brilliantly lighted.Great work!!!

one of the best photos i've ever seen. lighting in foreground, bridge, and lighting all incredible.

Wow. This is tremendously good work! Excellent!!!

Laura - this is absolutely stunning!

This just looks impressive..

what a wonderful shot; even though a part of me wonders if it is real or created digitally, the end result is spectacular, and I congratulate you on that. What a great bit of luck or good planning to be in that location at that time; I'd be interested to know which it was - never been able to get a lightning shot.

Anyway, good shooting, and planning.

I don't care how many times this bridge has been photographed, someone always finds an interesting approach. Very well done - a lot of power and suspense.

Lightning laces the sky...good photo. I like how the moon is peaking out from underneath the bridge.

Great shot, one question. With a shutter speed of only 1/5 sec, how did you manage to catch a bolt of lightning? You must have been either very lucky, or used a longer exposure. Or did you use some kind of automatic trigger? Even if Jim is right, and there is some digital hocus-pocus (which doesn't really bother me, photography is art IMHO), it's beautiful.

An absolutely beautiful photograph. The colors are wonderful as well as the composition.

There was no digital 'hocus pocus' here. This is an apparently very rare horizontal lightning bolt going down the length of the SF Bay. I snapped around 30 images and got lucky with this one. I noticed that the flashes seemed to last about 1 sec. By keeping the trigger depressed half way while watching the skies, I reacted at the slightest hint of light. A lucky shot? Yes. But it is the real McCoy.

wow .. absolutely stunning ...

 

and now that you confirmed that it's 100% photo and not a digital manipulation I only can show greatest respect ...

 

i thought this was a digital creation until i read your statement that it wasn't. what luck! i have chased storms and not gotten anything close.

I can attest to that shot's authenticity, since I was standing next to her when she got it. She nearly broke my eardrum screaming when she saw that come up on the LCD. The see-flash/click approach actually seems to work pretty well. I got a few decent shots that night, but nothing like that mega-bolt!

And to think after watching a number of these horizontal bolts on my drive home up 101 from work, I didn't go out with my camera because I thought the storm had passed...!

 

A unique opportunity missed : (

 

Where was this shot taken exactly? At first, it looks like it was shot from Potrero Hill but I can't make out Pac Bell Park in the foreground. Was it taken from the downtown side and the image flipped horizontally by any chance?

 

Laura, you have an absolute beautu of a shot and I'm deeply envious : )

 

fantastic, wish I'd taken it!