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Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

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AUS_Twisted
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Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by AUS_Twisted »

30/10/09 - From old forum
What a exciting afternoon/night, I decided to go for a chase towards Ballarat around 3PM from Dandenong North (it took me 1 hour just to get from my place to Westgate bridge ) Not much was happening around Ballarat when I got there except for some dark clouds to the N/W and sunshine which was a good thing for later. I ended up going to Bendigo as I could see cells building to the NW, after I had maccas at Bendigo it was dark enough to see lightning in the distance so I went in that direction and ended up on Loddon Valley Hwy, halway between Bendigo and Serpentine I went down a gravel road fairly close to this lightning active cell until it started raining I backtracked a few km's and ended up getting these 2 pics until the lightning died off. (there was lots of CG's on the way there but I arrived a bit late) On the way back home it was a fun drive with rain and lots of lighting going off in the distance, constant flashes everywhere like many others reported when I was going through the city and back home.

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31/10/09 - From old forum
A CG from Edithvale beach, this has been cropped by a lot as it was a fair way away and I was trying to get structure pics at the same time which was pretty useless
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10/2/10
Got slammed on the Calder Fwy just past Calder park after 1PM and had a few very close CG's (the sound of one was about 1/2 second from me). I ended up at Maldon on top of the lookout tower where Rikki was yesterday, there was so much development all around us (lot's of CG's and a few small fires around which didn't last long) I ended up leaving the tower just before the huge line hit from the West. The drive from Maldon to Bendigo was very heavy (pretty much white out conditions) so much water along the roads.

Panorama looking East taken between Castlemaine and Maldon
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Higher res - http://www.members.optushome.com.au/twi ... ama-01.jpg

Bubble Bubble behind the huge anvils/storms
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These two were taken from Mt Tarrengower fire lookout towards the N/NW
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This was the last shot of the day with the huge line on top of me a few minutes before it started raining, the whole sky was black to the S, W and NW
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Pano from the top of Mt Tarrengower Tower
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Higher res - http://www.members.optushome.com.au/twi ... ama-02.jpg
Last edited by AUS_Twisted on Sun Feb 28, 2010 11:44 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by AUS_Twisted »

27/2/10
Here's my pics from Berwick and another spot between Berwick and Endeavour Hills early that morning.

This was when things started to get good, before this there was only distant lightning south over the ocean probably 150k's away and I was almost ready to leave until I could see these cells building.
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Looks like someone let a Nuke off here lol
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Looking ENE and starting to get lighter, I was using high ISO so there wouldn't be to much movement from the clouds
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I think this was going over Frankston area
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A quick Pano looking East, it was very windy on top of this hill I walked up
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Higher res - http://www.members.optushome.com.au/twi ... Pano01.jpg

Last shots of the morning not long after sun rise, this is in HDR
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by rikjpool »

Amazing Steve! Love those cg's and the massive CB's. :) Great work :aussie:
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by Rivergirl »

Wow awesome Steve! Thanks so much for putting up here :applause:
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by Lily »

Absolutely gorgeous! You're so clever :)

My fave's are No. 7 from 27/2 and the last shot at dawn is beautiful.
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by Dez »

8th last photo on the 27/02 post is of pure amazement!!! Nice work!!
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by Greg Sorenson »

Great work Steve, a great bunch of photos there.
Planning on living a long time. There's so much to do in such a short space of a life!
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by AUS_Twisted »

Thanks for the comments Rikki, Rivergirl, Lilly, Dez and Greg!

I've been waiting to get some good CG shots down here at night for awhile now, had to stay up all night for them but it sure was worth it. There was so much clear air in between the cells it just looked awesome, I could of had 3 cameras on a tripod going at once at times.
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by AUS_Twisted »

About time I put some of my pics here from last month.

6/3/2010 Severe Storms
I had fairly heavy hail near Kyneton turn off on Calder Fwy and that was pretty much deafening for awhile and could probably only see 5 meters in front of me (no damage to car from when I quickly checked)

Here's that beast of a cell near Calder Park from the NE side, this was taken at 17mm wide angle from Calder Fwy to give you a idea of the size of it, it was raining a bit at the time and winds started to pick up strongly. I took off soon after as didn't want to get directly hit.

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After having a really good look from my pics on Saturday from the NE side of the Supercell not far passed Calder Park that hit Melbourne, some of the images show a possible funnel in the middle of all the dirt/junk that was in the air. When it got closer the wind really picked up and I had horizontal rain drops and dust/crap flying into me (some of my pics at full res show the rain streaks)

Anyway here's what I'm talking about, not to sure but does not surprise me if it is a funnel considering what that cell produced.
Taken at 2:12 PM - 17mm 400 ISO, 1/80 sec, f6.3
Edited contrast, levels etc in photoshop to bring out the possible funnel shape that I could see in the original better.

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With more extreme editing to show the shape in the dust/dirt
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Here's another pic from Saturday showing the wall cloud and possibly funnel (look to the left of the tree in the middle) This was taken 5 minutes before my other shots before I drove a few minutes further up the road for the closer ones.
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Radar images from the same time I took the pics above
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Some more pics from the 6th

Looking NE heading towards Shepparton, was a really nice big Rainbow for awhile but it lost it's brightness when I stopped here to take a few pics, of course 5 minutes later down the road it was brighter again lol
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Looking NW from North of Shepparton, I did a small bit of editing in this pic... it shouldn't be that hard to notice hehe other then the HDR
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Pano looking E to S
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Higher Res - http://www.members.optushome.com.au/twi ... Pano01.jpg

Looking NW a bit further up the road then the last shot, was a bit of lightning activity for awhile in this spot but died off when it got dark, most of the lightning activity when it got dark was further N and SE of my position though it wasn't that good for photos from what I could see.
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Looking East
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by AUS_Twisted »

Here's my pics from April 20th and early 21st

I went down to the bay at Edithvale as I wanted to cut that cell off over the bay, it was moving so slow I had time to go up to Blackrock closer to the cell and in a better position for lighting.

One of the first pics I took as I got to Blackrock, could hear a few deep rumbles at the time
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Pano from same spot, this is not complete and has bad joins
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Another pano further down the beach with the sun getting blocked out
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Storm moving SE towards Frankston
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Pano
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Was getting dark with clouds over head and a fair few CG's over the water so tried to get one using continuous shooting mode
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Later on that night near Berwick I met Robo from Weatherzone and some other people watching/trying to get pics, it was nonstop CC flashes all over the sky and only a few rare CG's which one of them wasn't to far away leaving a loud bang with everyone jumping back in their cars :D

There was some interesting structure after we got rained on by the side of this cell, had rain on lens for the next sequence of shots
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After this we had a heavy down poor and Robo left along with most of the other people but I stuck around to see some rain embedded crawlers across the sky
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After that cell died off, this one from the NE lit up
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I moved up on the other side of the hill as the cell above died off and there was some action further in the distance
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"Danger High Voltage" lol
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Looking North now with some not so bright lightning/structure shots, was using 400 ISO for these
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Things had died off so I got something to eat and went back home with a few flashes around driving back. Later on a cell went passed Lilydale and could see out the front door some CG's so I headed back out to Berwick with a heavy down poor and some random flashes to the N and East. I spoke to schitzengiggles a few times trying to work out what direction was putting out the best lightning but it was just so random and inconsistent. I ended up going down the road to Harkaway looking NNE to see some of the best lightning for the night, I had almost gone home at this point until this cell got active for 20 minutes.

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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by Lily »

Some awesome shots again in there, Steve. Nice work :applause:
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by Rivergirl »

Awesome collection there, well done!
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by AUS_Twisted »

Thanks again Lily and Rivergirl!

Was putting together some shots for print last few days and managed to make a small Panoramic (3 photos) of the Melbourne Super cell from March 6th, originally I did not think I had enough shots aligned close enough to make this but worked it out.

Melbourne Super cell NW of Calder Park, showing the possible dieing Tornado/Funnel on the left side.
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by Meso »

Nice!
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by AUS_Twisted »

Here's a Thunderstorm photo video I finished last week of photo's I've shot around Victoria, Australia before, during and after storm development from 2007-2010. Most people here should know where the music comes from. BTW, keep watching till the end :)

In future I want/plan to get lightning shots with more interesting foregrounds, tried many times before down the coast and around the city but as we know storms often don't do what you want them to do :cry: :mrgreen:

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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by Lily »

Beautiful stuff, Steve :thumbsup:
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by AUS_Twisted »

Thanks Lily :)

Got bored of waiting between storm seasons (hopefully something decent in the coming days), so here's a few more pics from the 6th March

NW Calder Park
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N Shepparton
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by Hamlan »

AUS_Twisted wrote:Here's a Thunderstorm photo video I finished last week of photo's I've shot around Victoria, Australia before, during and after storm development from 2007-2010. .
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Very nice compilation video Steve. Perfect choice of track to go with the images too. Well worth the time to watch! Thanks.

And, nice work on the pano of the Calder beast! I can see some evidence of the line feeding in from the right of the pic. Wish I had've been there 8-)
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by AUS_Twisted »

Thanks Brad much appreciated! Every time I look at the SC passed Calder pics I wish I could relive it again and again lol, if only I had a HD video recorder at the time (I've had to resort to watching U.S HP SC videos that looked similar for that)
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Re: Steve Twisted - Reports & Pics

Post by AUS_Twisted »

Hoping this goes to page 2 so can update this thread without page 1 being to flooded of pics lol
Last edited by AUS_Twisted on Sun Nov 28, 2010 8:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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