I know, I know. Last "Photo of the Day" was a shot of the city, but I just couldn't resist. We've had a couple monster storms come through Chicago over the past week, and the last one really provided some amazing scenes. As crazy as this photo is, you really had to be there. Imagine hearing a tornado siren (think off-tune nuclear siren - really spooky), watching a full double-rainbow appear, and seeing the sky light up with multiple lightening bolts - all at once!

*UPDATE: Insane HD video of this storm... must see!

Bonus picture and photo description after the break:

Back in February, I snapped this photo from our balcony just before sunrise. The color in the sky was a gorgeous blue and the moon was crisply visible. I knew the cloud definition and colors would be enhanced if I took a multiple exposure shot and post-processed as an HDR, so I flipped my D90 to bracket mode and took three shots. Even though there was a fair amount of light, I decided to use my tripod to avoid any movement between the three pictures. Each one turned out great, but combining them into a singular HDR image really captured that moment well.

Date Taken: February 11th, 2010
Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: 18-200 VR
Focal Length: 18
F number: 3.5
Exposure: 1/10

The only thing that rivals the beauty of a brilliant sunset is a gorgeous sunrise. It must have been a pretty calm night in the Windy City for Lake Michigan to be as placid as it was. Paying the extra dough for a West-facing apartment is definitely worth it!

Not much was done to this photo - only slight boosts in saturation and sharpness. I'm thinking the photo could benefit from slight vignetting - what do you think?

Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikon 18-200mm VR
Focal Length: 18mm
F number: 9
Exposure: 1/13
Taken March 24th, 2010

I was downtown yesterday for an event and took some architectural shots of the Wrigley Building and Tribune Tower. I took all of them with my Tokina 11-16mm - a great super wide angle lens that really captures straight lines well. The picture above, of Tribune tower, was edited in Photoshop. Here is a simple 5-step process to get this type of photo:

You have to love Wrigley Field, especially the old style billboard. Not only was it a beautiful day, the Cubs actually won yesterday! Here are a couple more pics from the game with my Tokina 11-16mm lens:

The annual Chicago Air and Water show was this last weekend here in Chicago, and I wanted to give a few pointers on capturing jets.

1. If you have a DSLR, rotate your dial to "S" and set the shutter speed anywhere from 2000 to 4000. This will allow you to stop down for clarity and still get crisp images of most planes, even jets.

2. Bump up your ISO to 800 if you have good light - if not, set it to 250 or 300. Remember, when you set your ISO too high, your pictures will turn out noisy - adjust to fit your light!

3. Set your advance mode to Continuous High. This way, when you hold down the shutter button, your camera will take picture after picture - very useful for fast planes.