Spring and summer in the High Plains brings about thunderstorms. In an otherwise barren landscape, the storms allow photographers to stretch their photography legs in the outdoors. While an intense thunderstorm can provide all the intensity an image needs, they can also prove to be problematic with it comes to post processing.
In the evening, when many a storm fires up on the Plains, they can present a wide dynamic range and a lot of people who chase the storms will create images with blown highlights, thereby leaving out part of the beauty of the scene. When I am presented with such a scene, I want to be able to capture all of the dynamic range and present it in my final work. For me, I believe an image is so much better when that high dynamic range is presented.
Some of these storms can move with speed across the Plains, so I have to be mindful of my shutter speed. I know I'm going to be shooting with a small aperture, in this case f/10. ISO of course was at 100. Shutter speed came out to 1/4". Storms can definitely present some issues at time. I will also use exposure bracketing most of the time. One shot for the highlights, and one for the shadows. Even though I might not use both shots, I like having the extra insurance when I get home that I have all the material I need.
For post processing, I will make basic adjustments in Lightroom. Once I have those, I will then move into Photoshop and using the Lumenzia action panel, I will utilize luminosity masks to bring out the most I can in one of my storm images.