JOIN VIMEO TODAY

Thanks for the comments. I have made the text smaller and less obtrusive and reloaded the clip. I'll keep the text smaller in future but as my footage keeps getting ripped off I'm not going to remove it altogether.

I love doing timelapse on severe storms, they are incredible things with winds blowing in and out, mixtures of warm and cold air create amazing cloud formations. As you say when you get a tornado that is often only visible for a brief moment when you are looking into what is called the "notch" of a storm there often isn't time to get the tripod out as to see down the notch you have to be in the storms path!
Early season storms tend to have a lot of rain and be fast moving so the tornadoes are often obscured by rain and hail. Later in the season the storms tend to move slower and the tornadoes are easier to see. I'll be back out chasing again later in the season and hope to get some more storm footage.

The bulk of any strom chasing trip is spent hanging around in truck stops and small town burger bars watching the skies looking for the first hint of a storm forming. At first all you get are puffy cumulus clouds that form and then die. Slowly these get bigger and taller, each time lasting a bit longer until eventually one cloud continues to grow. Then suddenly that one cloud will start to explode upwards often reaching a height of 55,000ft. Then the wind takes over as winds from different directions at different altitudes cause the storm to spin and rotate. These massive, long lived rotating storms are called Supercells and they are responsible for most tornadoes as well as hail to the size of grapefruits and straight line winds of upto 120mph.

WoW! A real life "Twister" Story. How exciting. That was one of the most outstanding little movies I have ever experienced. Excellent music to go along with the ever changing images, too. Bravo!

Yes Dave. I have the Sony 0.8x wide adapter which I have on the camera most of the time. I really like the adapter as it doesn't soften the image and is completely zoom thru although as you have observed it does introduce some barrel distortion when fully wide. I hope to get down to the Florida Keys in September to chase Waterspouts and then up into your area for lightning. Have fun when you get your EX1, it's an excellent camera. BTW for night Lightning use a 2 frame or longer slow shutter to get the best results.

Thanks for the 2-frame tip. I'll be sure to test it out as the storms start brewing.

Thanks for the comments Phil. One day I must charter a plane and a brave Pilot to get some aerials of these storms!

Once my upload limit resets I'll post some more. I love storm chasing. The Supercell thunderstorms that they get in the USA during the spring are incredible and quite unlike anything you see anywhere else in the world. I'll be spending more time out on the Plains later in the month and hope to get more of the same.

Hmmm, now there's an idea. I'm off to Arizona in July specifically to shoot lightning. Maybe I'll have to do a little mini-doc on lightning.