Didjman wrote:Ok, my last post last night, was that everything was going past me. I was too cynical! Around 11pm, a Cell formed to my NW. I rushed outside after feeling despondent, and the storm offered me this: http://files.petermatters.com.au/IMG_66391.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Aus_Twisted - Amazing pics!! shows Natures beauty:D Whats its about! Thx Pete. Was gobsmacked when I saw it live. Seeing the pic was something else!! My trigger works:D
Some nice anvils there, Steve. Nice location too. And some great lightning shots Rikki, Chris and others. Glad someone came home with something decent last night.
It's been that long since we've had storms I got out of the car last night and thought "Crap, I don't even remember what settings I'm supposed to use for lightning!"
Results showed too, these were the best I could manage...
Dunno if there so out of focus cause of the wind causing motion blur or my infinity marker isn't where I think it is. Gonna go out and experiment this wknd and find out exactly where the darn thing is.
Received some okay soaking rain overnight, managing 9.8mm to 9am this morning. Some further moderate to heavy showers since 9am, however it has largley cleared now. But what an amazing 24 hours across the state, showers, rain and thunderstorms, we had it all. Not forget the wind, was very strong here until the front hit at about 5.30pm yesterday. No thunderstorms down our way, however I did manage to see lightning yesterday afternoon to my southeast coming home from school, thunderstorms down near Cape Otway region.
I would take those charts as a grain of salt Meso, very unlikely, particularly viewing them seven days out. It will definitely change, but is looking interesting nontheless in about a weeks time.
Jake - Senior AWF Forecaster
Feel free to send me a private message if you have any questions.
9.6mm all up since last night which is at the upper end of what I was expecting. A very handy drop of rain given how dry the air mass has been lately.
Very interesting to see a major event in the pipeline around this time next week as a large influx of moisture comes in from the tropics, including from the NW part of AUS which is directly bucking the trend of the +ve IOD. There is still quite a bit of warm water around the west coast of AUS and eastern Indian ocean despite the intense cooler than normal area around Indonesia and northern AUS. Moisture can still flood in from further south in the tropical Indian so perhaps things are going to return to something more favourable a lot sooner than we were initially expecting.
BTW, worth keeping in mind that +ve IOD does not necessarily mean certain drought and dry weather continuing on forever. There have been +ve IOD events in spring that have delivered good rainfall including the 1997 spring that had the double whammy of El Nino and +ve IOD but we still got close to average rain here. Strangely enough it was the only part of that year anywhere near up to average rainfall, so the positive IOD phase around spring was actually the wettest time of the year. The weather works in mysterious ways.
Actually Leasy. How much does that thunderstorm map pattern match your Avatar of the pussy cat.
The ears, red eyes and mouth. Uncanny.
Must be an omen. Thunderstorm gonna give a lickin to VIC. LOL..Meow!
When is the new thread starting . This ones nearly out of date: Its damn cold an the weather is stabilising and it is later than the 19th sept
For us Monday was a beautiful day just got to 24.5c and no wind until late evening.Very strong wind around 2100hrs no damage found.
We had 4.5mm rain yesterday some areas had double us bit of luck where the heavy bands rain fell. We have dryed out quite well so small amounts are great.
Hume Dam is 98.4% on Monday looks like they can't be expecting any heavy falls any time soon.I would be worried if i lived in Albury.
crikey wrote:Actually Leasy. How much does that thunderstorm map pattern match your Avatar of the pussy cat.
The ears, red eyes and mouth. Uncanny.
Must be an omen. Thunderstorm gonna give a lickin to VIC. LOL..Meow!
When is the new thread starting . This ones nearly out of date: Its damn cold an the weather is stabilising and it is later than the 19th sept
Bahahaha! Your post had me laughing uncontrollably! Never thought of it that way! I'd say it's an omen for sure!
Meso I'd def find what the proper infinity area is on your lens, my shots above are shot with manual focus and infinity (as long as the aperture is wide enough for closer objects infinity will work every time for landscape shots) my 17-85 lens has all the markers on it so it's real quick and easy to setup. I know some people open up the aperture for lightning shots and use 100 ISO depending on the brightness, but I'd rather use a slower wider aperture with 200 ISO (again depending on the foreground if any and lightning brightness) when I have a foreground to work with. From what I saw Monday wasn't the best for great lightning shots as there was strong winds, storms moving to fast, storm structure was hidden and light rain to annoy everyone.
Not sure what tripod you have, but having a heavier one or weighing it down helps a lot in windy conditions. One of the most important things on my Manfrotto tripod I use all the time is the 2 spirit levels it has, one on the tripod and another on the head so it makes it fairly quick to get the camera fairly level. Also a great feature the Canon 7D and newer bodies have is the built in level display on the LCD or view finder which is ideal for night time.
lol that storm potential pic is funny, looks like a rabbit is going to eat the bay
AUS_Twisted wrote:Meso I'd def find what the proper infinity area is on your lens, my shots above are shot with manual focus and infinity (as long as the aperture is wide enough for closer objects infinity will work every time for landscape shots) my 17-85 lens has all the markers on it so it's real quick and easy to setup. I know some people open up the aperture for lightning shots and use 100 ISO depending on the brightness, but I'd rather use a slower wider aperture with 200 ISO (again depending on the foreground if any and lightning brightness) when I have a foreground to work with. From what I saw Monday wasn't the best for great lightning shots as there was strong winds, storms moving to fast, storm structure was hidden and light rain to annoy everyone.
Not sure what tripod you have, but having a heavier one or weighing it down helps a lot in windy conditions. One of the most important things on my Manfrotto tripod I use all the time is the 2 spirit levels it has, one on the tripod and another on the head so it makes it fairly quick to get the camera fairly level. Also a great feature the Canon 7D and newer bodies have is the built in level display on the LCD or view finder which is ideal for night time.
lol that storm potential pic is funny, looks like a rabbit is going to eat the bay
Hey Steve, yeah, I've had a bit of a play around with my lens (a canon 15-85mm) and my infinity seems to be right on the line, on the opposite end to the sidewards 8 (everything I had read said ininity was on the 8!). So that probably why they were out of focus, along with the wind. Bit stupid that they have that area between the line and the 8 where everything is just out of focus. But anyway, hopefully get to do some real tests next week!
Yeah I use a cable shutter release, once I'm happy with the area I'm photographing for lightning I leave it locked on continuous shooting mode and make adjustments when needed. If you have no foreground to worry about (dark trees and horizon etc) then manual bulb mode is good so you can leave it open for a certain time and release after the lightning, works good if there's constant lightning as you can keep the shutter open for shorter times with less hot pixels on the sensor.
Sweet. I've got a remote sitting in my bag, but haven't really used it yet. Just as easy to set it to continuous as you said and use the timer to avoid having to press the shutter button.
Exactly how I grabbed my shot - simply popped onto a tripod, set the focus up indoors down the hall and then flicked it over to manual, set to 1.6 seconds at F4 on ISO800. Oh and also set to continuous drive mode so when the remote is plugged in and I set it and push the lock, it keeps firing...
And that bunny image in the storm forecast kinda reminded me of the rabbit thing in Donnie Darko - weird stuff indeed !
The weather works in mysterious ways.
