 |
 |
 |
All Images Copyright Terry Pallister
|
|
|
|
| After thinking of adding a still camera to my lightning chasing, I did so on this afternoon as storms approached New Orleans. Storms did roll into the area about 9:30 pm. But all stayed off to my W and NW. I used Kodachrome 64 slide film for this first effort. It wasn't until 11:30 pm that a cell developed NW out over Lake Pontchartrain with a number of strikes that I could get. They were all 10 miles or more away. I had to use a 75-300 zoom lens, shooting at f/6.7. The cloud base was very low. The storm was really too far away to get good results. With cropping, the 3 shots above aren't too bad. This storm was kind enough to let me get my feet wet with the new camera to give me some calibration on what settings to use. |
 |
| Very few night
storms had come in since that first night with the new still camera in
February. Setting up and operating 2 camcorders and still camera
are proving to be quite an adventure. This storm had started before
dark and moved south over Lake Pontchartrain. Most of the lightning
was in the rainshield until the storm passed over. Then there were
a few erratic bolts that I used the camcorder to get. Anvil crawlers
became apparent as they just barely came back over the top of the airport
building into view. I decided to stay put rather than packing up
all the equipment and moving to the other side of the building which would
have taken at least 10 minutes. Finally one crawler shot across the
sky in front of me. I snapped the still camera as it came across.
This shot is only part of the explosion of crawler. I was lucky enough
to get all of this crawler on one camcorder.
Film: Fuji Sensia II asa 100. f/5.6. 28 mm lens. |
 |
| A surprise mesoscale
complex of storms moved in from the NNE across Lake Pontchartrain about
5 am. Even though there was no dew anywhere, humidity associated
with the storm system suddenly shot up as they approached. This system
had maintained itself all night and come in from Georgia. When I
set up the equipment, neither camcorder would start. Each warned
me that condensation had formed on the inside. This only happened
once a couple of years ago. Very strange since we have so much humidity
here all the time. When I pulled out the still camera equipment the
lenses fogged up and would not dry out for quite a while. Needless
to say I was not a happy camper. Finally, one lens dried toward the
end of the storm. I shot a number of pictures. Really crisp
bolts would hit to the left and then to the right of where I was aiming.
I managed to get lucky enough to get this one shot even though it was partially
obscured by a light rain that was falling.
Film: Fuji Sensia II asa 100. f/8. 75 mm lens. About a 20 second exposure. |