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March 5th local Lightning

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Author Topic: March 5th local Lightning  (Read 367 times)
Tyler
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« on: March 08, 2009, 06:53:24 am »

I was working on my trip report webpage for that fog at murray hill when I heard a crack of thunder. I quickly jumped off and grabbed all the camera gear and ran out the door to the car. I'm sure I looked rediculus doing it, fumbling everything around, I didn't even look at the radar, I just left. I was going to go to this lake, but realized that the park had closed at 10pm (its now 11:30pm) So I just drove west to the nearest country road where I could pull over and shoot from my car. I witnessed a nice Downdraft and clear base around it, and I took a series of images and put them into a GIF to show the movement of the storm (coming right at me) here is the animation: (it might be a little slow, since its so big)



I stayed here and tryed to catch a close CG, which I did, but it overexposed. It's really tough to shoot lightning, you have to either go for the close ones and stop down to F22 (but then you miss the dimmer ones) or go for the dimmer ones and have the big ones overexpose. I was actually shooting for the inbetween bolts here with f/9 I think.



Just about a minute after this big cg It started hailing and one actually hit my camera, so I pulled everything in a started to drive away, and it got pretty intense, about pea sized hail and quite a bit of lightning. I got home and shot out my windows, but none of those really turned out, but later that night another line came through and I caught this one.



Nice to get some good lightning, I hope to get a shot just like the first this summer, only properly exposed Wink
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jgs001
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« Reply #1 on: March 08, 2009, 08:27:15 am »

Tyler, you've caught some amazing shots there. The large one might be burnt out in places but you've got some amazing detail in the lower half
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JohnC
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« Reply #2 on: March 08, 2009, 10:06:00 am »

Fantastic and very impressive the way you've posted it too. That still is a cracker -  there's a few hundred million volts in that one and  it was a bit close wasn't it Tyler ?lol.. How's the season shaping up ? - I'll be going through your State, no doubt May 1-15th.
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Roman White
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« Reply #3 on: March 08, 2009, 10:16:56 am »

Congratulations, Tyler, you have captured a very good t-storm!!  Smiley
Great images & animation. The lightning on the #2 is very powerful, it worth a thousand of 'dimmer ones'.
And the last image has some specific kind of beauty: I don't know why, but it looks to me very calm, with no action, just image if the sky would stay the same for a long time... , and wet roads shining with blue look very nice too.  Wink
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« Reply #4 on: March 08, 2009, 01:13:21 pm »

Tyler, that is awesome!!!  Smiley, I first seen the animation on your site last night and was blown away by it. The images play in perfect flawless moderately fast speed to show the storm approaching. There's some really nice structure in there. The lightning is excellent and that close c-g at the end really got my adrenaline pumping, I could imagine you standing there taking those and hoping to catch a good bolt then when the big one came you where overjoyed with happiness....amazing. Hats off to you Tyler, you have got a stunning result for so early in the Season. Keep those beauties coming.... Wink
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