Any Storm Chasers?

bland

Here's the 2013 outlook!

http://www.tornadotitans.com/tornado-season-2013-predictions/

I'm going to be giving my Nikon's some company this year by adding a GoPro HERO 3 to my dash.

macsavageg4

Once I get properly storm spotting trained I will probably look into actually doing some storm chasing. For now lightning shots off the front porch and if i can swing it take some lightning pictures near some of the wind farms out here in KS.

Gitzo

Once I get properly storm spotting trained I will probably look into actually doing some storm chasing. For now lightning shots off the front porch and if i can swing it take some lightning pictures near some of the wind farms out here in KS.

Mac; I'd love to hear about your lightning photography; I'm "into" doing lightning too, but I don't do much from the front porch; about the second (or third) safest place to photograph lightning from, is a car; (but definitely NOT a convertible !) And even then, make sure to park the car at LEAST 5 miles or so from the storm. If you're ever in the market for a lightning trigger, check out the "NERO" (made in Lafayette, In.) it's a great unit. (very small, very light, and works great)

bland

@macsavageg4 ~ A way to cheat at storm spotting is to spot the pro chasers like Reed Timmer instead of the storms. Then once we find them we follow them for the day. All the big time storm chasers put their GPS location out on their websites.

macsavageg4

I actually just got my Camera Axe (open source arduino based project) a proper light transistor that I have mounted on an eyepiece ring that should handle the auto firing. I still have some adjustments to make to the camera axe but it now triggers consistently with a short burst of increased light. I have some pics up on my flickr account which I will include in this post. I am planning on building an AM based pickup sensor setup to go with light sensor at some point to increase the likely hood of catching more shots. So far my current method has been low ISO, low shutter speed (1.5s or more), and way stopped down lens (This year shooting with my 20mm f/2.8 AI-s at around F16 or so depending on the ambient lighting). Anyway here is a link to my decent storm shots off the front and back porch thus far. The newest ones are with the D800 all the previous ones were with my D7000.

My storm decent storm shots thus far.

NSXTypeR

I am not a storm chaser, but I do admire lightning.

Finally got a good stab at it last night.



Lots of luck, no tripod and 2s shutter speeds. Next time I should just set up the interval timer instead of stabbing away at the shutter...

Rx4Photo

Living near the South Florida east coast, whenever there's a hurricane headed our way I love to go to the beach and try to capture some of the dramatic clouds and waves that tend to preceed the storm. Nothing so far this year ... and not really hoping for anything because wishing for a hurricane falls into that category of "be careful of what you wish for, because you just might get it."

NSXTypeR

Living near the South Florida east coast, whenever there's a hurricane headed our way I love to go to the beach and try to capture some of the dramatic clouds and waves that tend to preceed the storm. Nothing so far this year ... and not really hoping for anything because wishing for a hurricane falls into that category of "be careful of what you wish for, because you just might get it."

No lightning though...?

I was just wondering, for those of you who shoot lightning, what settings are you guys using? I was going to use something longer, but metering might be a bit weird for such super long exposures.

I was using a 2 second exposure at an aperture of 4 or so at ISO 400 at 18mm on DX for my shot above.

scoobysmak

I think this is my best lighting shot I have had, taken a few years back at South Palm Beach. I think this is in the old forum PAD as well. I did the 5 second tripod shot, just got lucky but the lighting that night was pretty active so figured I would get something.

NSXTypeR

I actually just got my Camera Axe (open source arduino based project) a proper light transistor that I have mounted on an eyepiece ring that should handle the auto firing. I still have some adjustments to make to the camera axe but it now triggers consistently with a short burst of increased light. I have some pics up on my flickr account which I will include in this post. I am planning on building an AM based pickup sensor setup to go with light sensor at some point to increase the likely hood of catching more shots. So far my current method has been low ISO, low shutter speed (1.5s or more), and way stopped down lens (This year shooting with my 20mm f/2.8 AI-s at around F16 or so depending on the ambient lighting). Anyway here is a link to my decent storm shots off the front and back porch thus far. The newest ones are with the D800 all the previous ones were with my D7000.

My storm decent storm shots thus far.

Nice shots!

The biggest problem is figuring out and guessing where the lightning will strike. So your Camera Axe just points the camera automatically at the lightning? Does it set exposure too?

I think this is my best lighting shot I have had, taken a few years back at South Palm Beach. I think this is in the old forum PAD as well. I did the 5 second tripod shot, just got lucky but the lighting that night was pretty active so figured I would get something.

Yeah, there's a lot of guesswork involved. I got pretty lucky.