I've seen some amazing lightning and storm photographs in addition to the more peaceful noctilucent clouds and other such weather phenomena. But despite the weather resistant properties of Pentax gear, that topic doesn't seem to be very common here amongst Pentax users.

So, any storm photographers around? Would you care to share what kind of equipment and accessories you use? I assume that in addition to a WR body, a lens such as DA* 16-50mm must be very popular (or nowadays the new WR kit lens). What other stuff is handy (a good tripod obviously)?

And related to this, what kind of experience do people have with I or II kit lenses in rain or storm? The thing is that I for some reason already own two II kit zooms and while they're not WR, it feels in this case wiser to risk damaging a cheap kit zoom rather than buying a third optically similar one with WR. DA* would be better naturally, but today they cost quite a bit even 2nd hand. But even if I'd risk damaging the cheap lens in rain, how big is the risk of getting my camera body wet too without a WR lens? I assume the connection could leak some water but is the risk minor or major?

[photocat]

I'm not a storm chaser primarily b/c I live in Virginia, too many hills/trees around and not much severe weather. But I am very interested in the replies to this one too. I'm a storm chaser at heart

I would, however, imagine weathersealing isn't as big of a deal as you would expect especially for shooting lightning or wall clouds etc. You would generally be several miles away with unobstructed views. You wouldn't really be shooting any of this in the rain or weather. And if you were, it would be too heavy to get a good shot and you'd be in danger. Not to mention the winds / gusts.

I could see being in situation with a few rain drops and that wouldn't hurt the weather sealed equipment (or you could put a plastic bag over your set up). Again, if it is more than that, you aren't going to be getting those great shots and you'll need to be in a safe location yourself.

[Ratmagiclady]

I'd be inclined to use a rainsleeve or plastic bag, even with a cheaper lens, if it's raining, ...just to avoid complications. Having the WR body means you don't have to fuss overly about it, but it's still convenient not to have things wet.

It's often a good occasion to have a couple of 'beater' clear filters on hand just because that way you have a few convenient changes of clean glass. (And, the crappier the weather, the less likely it matters how nice your filter may be, IQ-wise. You can also clear the filters themselves more hastily without being worried about ruining them if they came off some old used lens you Ebayed or if they're something which already met with a minor mishap along the way. )

[photocat]

Ok I may stand corrected. He is Nikon shooter but his type of shooting does seem to make an argument for having good weather sealed equipment.

Jim Reed Photography - Severe & Unusual Weather

[Wildnsyko]

I'm still waiting for a tornado to show up around here....

[Wombat]

I'd be inclined to use a rainsleeve or plastic bag, even with a cheaper lens, if it's raining, ...just to avoid complications. Having the WR body means you don't have to fuss overly about it, but it's still convenient not to have things wet.

It's often a good occasion to have a couple of 'beater' clear filters on hand just because that way you have a few convenient changes of clean glass. (And, the crappier the weather, the less likely it matters how nice your filter may be, IQ-wise. You can also clear the filters themselves more hastily without being worried about ruining them if they came off some old used lens you Ebayed or if they're something which already met with a minor mishap along the way. )

The only concern I'd have here would be getting condensation build-up between the filter and the front lens element, or inside the plastic bag. If you have a cheap filter you could probably drill a tiny hold on the inside rim at the bottom, and poke a hole in the plastic bag.
The other thing you could try would be to spray your camera with water repellant (but get some advice from Pentax first! I don't think I'd do it myself - depends how desperate you are).
I guess you'd also want to invest in a good quality polarizing filter. And as photocat points out, you're not likely to be shooting right in the thick of it. Do you have suitable long lenses to keep you away from danger?
When you've sorted it all out, I'm sure we'll all be interested in seeing your pics.

[code4code5]

I caught this tornado on 06-07-09 from about 1.5 miles to the north of "ground zero." A small land spout to be sure, but very exciting none the less. This just happened to have been the first day of about two solid weeks or tornado activity in the Denver area.

The funnel cloud shots were taken from about four miles to the south and were actually over about the same area as the earlier tornado. Those were taken on 06-09-09.

The shots from 06-14-09 were of a developing storm that actually sent me to the basement about forty minutes later. It takes quite a bit to send me to the basement.....

June 7th - 14th Weather

I can't offer a whole lot of advice, but I can say that it's kind of like shooting a wedding - things change so quickly that it can be hard to keep up. I've tried to remember what my mind's eye was seeing when I made the exposure so that I could recreate the color balance in post processing. Perhaps it's just my recollection but it seems that cameras don't typically do so great a job with green skies.

I don't have a lot of gear to mess with, but I wasn't worried about the 18-55 at all. If I get a significant amount of water in there, it's a $50 loss. That, I can live with for a photo I've always wanted. I need to remember to tell myself to slow the hell down and think about what I'm doing rather than machine-gunning my way through. Not an easy task when you're heart's going about 200 bpm.

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Last edited by code4code5; 07-29-2009 at 09:49 PM.

[RoxnDox]

I caught this tornado on 06-07-09 from about 1.5 miles to the north of "ground zero." A small land spout to be sure, but very exciting none the less. This just happened to have been the first day of about two solid weeks or tornado activity in the Denver area.

The funnel cloud shots were taken from about four miles to the south and were actually over about the same area as the earlier tornado. Those were taken on 06-09-09.

The shots from 06-14-09 were of a developing storm that actually sent me to the basement about forty minutes later. It takes quite a bit to send me to the basement.....

June 7th - 14th Weather

I can't offer a whole lot of advice, but I can say that it's kind of like shooting a wedding - things change so quickly that it can be hard to keep up. I've tried to remember what my mind's eye was seeing when I made the exposure so that I could recreate the color balance in post processing. Perhaps it's just my recollection but it seems that cameras don't typically do so great a job with green skies.

I don't have a lot of gear to mess with, but I wasn't worried about the 18-55 at all. If I get a significant amount of water in there, it's a $50 loss. That, I can live with for a photo I've always wanted. I need to remember to tell myself to slow the hell down and think about what I'm doing rather than machine-gunning my way through. Not an easy task when you're heart's going about 200 bpm.

Nice pictures, although you do realize that taking them automatically qualifies you for the "Are you Nucking Futs?!?!? Club", right?

As it happens, I was in Denver the week before for some software testing. I'm very happy NOT to have been there during your storm week


Jim

[code4code5]

Yeah, there is a certan level of nucking futs, but how often do you really get the opportunty to shoot something like that? Glad you enjoyed your visit! This week we look a lot more like Seattle than Denver.

[Wildnsyko]

I caught this tornado on 06-07-09 from about 1.5 miles to the north of "ground zero." A small land spout to be sure, but very exciting none the less. This just happened to have been the first day of about two solid weeks or tornado activity in the Denver area.

The funnel cloud shots were taken from about four miles to the south and were actually over about the same area as the earlier tornado. Those were taken on 06-09-09.

The shots from 06-14-09 were of a developing storm that actually sent me to the basement about forty minutes later. It takes quite a bit to send me to the basement.....

June 7th - 14th Weather

I can't offer a whole lot of advice, but I can say that it's kind of like shooting a wedding - things change so quickly that it can be hard to keep up. I've tried to remember what my mind's eye was seeing when I made the exposure so that I could recreate the color balance in post processing. Perhaps it's just my recollection but it seems that cameras don't typically do so great a job with green skies.

I don't have a lot of gear to mess with, but I wasn't worried about the 18-55 at all. If I get a significant amount of water in there, it's a $50 loss. That, I can live with for a photo I've always wanted. I need to remember to tell myself to slow the hell down and think about what I'm doing rather than machine-gunning my way through. Not an easy task when you're heart's going about 200 bpm.

Cool Pics!! Now only if I can catch some like that!! Thanks for showing us!

[code4code5]

I'd really like to pick up an ultra-wide for capturing thunderstorms. With the geography around here, the storms blow up along the front range, gain strength over the Denver area, then head east. By the time they start to look interesting, you're right under it.

So, what kind of lenses would be good for shooting like this? My desire has been to eventually get a DA* 16-50mm lens due to the speed (aperture-wise), IQ and WR. Unfortunately it seems that the lens price has risen to a level beyond my reach - or comfortable zone. And it's not that wide to begin with. Today my widest lens is the version II kit zoom and something wider is really needed. But what? For sky and atmospheric phenomena, a lens as wide as possible would be nice. I've been looking for a bargain DA 10-17mm too but am now more tempted by a Samyang 8mm fisheye at a fraction of the DA's price. I'll most likely end up getting one. But I just wonder whether a fisheye is fine for the only ultra-wide despite the PP possibilities to straighten the picture.

[heliphoto]

I love chasing storms - to the extent that I've stayed out till past midnight driving around the high desert chasing lightning storms that I know will start fires I'll be flying on the next day...

I've used everything from 10mm to 200mm, and it would be hard to pick a single focal length range for this sort of fun. In tight quarters, a wide (say 16mm) to normal lens works best, though you'll question whether you should be outside in such conditions . In wide open country, I prefer a telephoto lens since I can stay outside the rain and gust front winds while still getting close to the action. Personally I found 10mm Fisheye to be too wide, as the lightning is a small feature of the photo, though this could work amazingly well if you were really immersed in the storm .

Having a hook or some other means of weighting your tripod is important in these conditions as the winds can be sudden and intense (I don't want to talk about how I learned this lesson ).

I've had the most success at night as have most folks I've seen, though I've got a few nice shots at dusk too. The nice thing about night is that exposure length doesn't matter - it's dark... in fact aside from noise and DFS (dark frame subtraction) issues, the easiest exposure length is to lock the shutter open in Bulb mode and wait for lightning to occur within the frame - this worked very well on my CCD based K200D with exposures up to a minute or so, but with the K20D and the K-7, the forced DFS leads to lost shooting opportunities, and it always seems that the best strikes occur while your camera is doing it's DFS/NR mojo, so with these cameras I've been employing a strategy of shooting a continuous series of exposures, each one short enough to not trigger DFS. This works pretty well, but leads to lots of throwaway shots. As for sensitivity and aperture, I've found that ISO 400 and f/3.5 is my baseline setting, and I adjust from there.

Regarding WR lenses - they're great piece of mind for this type of shooting on a WR body, but I find that since you're pointing the lens up toward the clouds, you tend to get a lot of water drops on your front element / filter, so I haven't actually shot much lightning while it was actually raining on me (though I have hiked a mile back to town at midnight through a heavy downpour ). I would worry more about a waterproof case / bag / cover more than the lens itself.

Here's a few of my best lightning shots to date...

24mm, ISO 400, f/3.2, 45 sec. (bulb mode)


200mm, ISO 100, f/5, 10 sec. (at sunset, so not fully dark yet) - cropped for zoom and composition


43mm, ISO 400, f/4, 2 sec. (using a polarizing filter to darken the scene to get longer exposures while shooting on continous)


115mm, ISO 400, f/3.5, 20 sec.

[Fl_Gulfer]

Great Shots!

[Leaf Fan]

heliphoto - great shots, that last one really does it for me, great capture.