HP supercell near Rule, Texas

Hello Sam, beautifully intense and scary. Enough to send one heading for the root cellar . Thanks for sharing the phenomenon.

hugh

I like this shot. Nice one. We have scary skies here in TN too but not as scary as this.

Hey Sam,

That's a pretty wild storm! I do like the look of the shot, though for road shots, I like to have a pretty clean road. What I mean, is that asphalt leading into the road on the right. I would have stepped forward a few feet more so I just got the main road into the shot.

It still though is a very cool shot!

Jim

i'm no expert at storm shots, would you care to share why you shot this at f/2.8? thanks

wonderful power of the sky you have captured here.

Michael

Thanks for the comments.

Michael,

The Sony DSC-R1 is my "documentation" camera and is set on automatic, including auto ISO. When I have time and when conditions allow, I break out the Nikon D200 or the Pentax 67II (yes, a FILM camera), both in manual mode. I've had some very bad experiences with the D200 when using it in fully automatic mode. In automatic mode, the camera is also set to focus priority. Last year I was on a large tornado near Quinter, Kansas, and the D200 refused to respond due to the low light, and relatively low contrast. As a result, I didn't get a photo of the tornado before it quickly dissipated. Since then, I've switched to fully manual operation for the D200 when chasing storms.

In this case, the wind was blowing 40 to 50 mph into the storm, with a large amount of blowing dust. Actually, a tornado had dissipated just before this photo. We didn't see the tornado due to the thick blowing dust and low visibility under the storm. The DSC-R1 has a dedicated lens, virtually eliminating the chance of getting dust on the sensor, even during severe conditions.

Jim, I did take other photos, including road shots that exclude the side road. I save those for the stock agency.

If you're interested in seeing other views of the storm, a few video clips are posted on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUQj_Gw-FWQ

One more note, unlike regular landscape photography,when shooting a violent, tornadic, fast moving HP supercell like this one, it's anything but casual, relaxed photography. You must take a few photos, and then get out of the way, or suffer the consequences.