New Camera

Wide angle is a must for chasing, I have the 10-22 and love it. I'd also recommend a nice 50mm as it will come in very handy in the medium ranges. The Canon 50mm F1.8 is a very sharp, high-quality lens for the money (only a hundred bucks), and it has actually captured some of my best tornado shots. It is a faster lens, meaning you don't have to rely as much on higher ISOs.
 
I used a Nikon D5300 for chase season 2014, which is almost the exact same thing as your D5200.

It's a great camera, and like most modern DSLR's, is very capable of recording fantastic storm shots - but a lot of this is up to the person behind the camera. It's important to know your camera inside and out, so you can switch modes / ISO / other settings quickly and not futz around scrolling through menus when you are in rapidly changing conditions. Experiment with different types of metering - I suggest you begin with matrix rather than center-weight or spot. You will find autofocus has problems against gray, non-contrasty skies, so get comfortable focusing manually and (like mentioned in other replies) don't forget composition, because taking 30 steps into a farm field in order to get some power lines out of the picture can make the difference between an "okay" picture and a spectacular one!

Practice shooting clouds NOW. Do you like what you capture? What can you do differently?

If you want your pics to show towering white storm towers contrasted against a dark blue sky, you need to use a circular polarizing filter (~$30) on your lens, but you should take it off before you get under the meso, where things get dark. Like others have suggested, you will rarely use a long lens when chasing. The Nikon 18-55 or 18-140 are good all-purpose starter lenses, but you will find yourself wishing you had a wider-angle lens any time the entire sky is filled with mammatus or a huge shelf cloud is a half-mile away and closing in. For DX cameras such as yours, the Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 AT-X116 Pro DX (about $450) is a great choice for wide-angle work.

When you are under the meso in relatively dark conditions, you will probably want to use the largest aperture available with ISO set such that your shutter speed is fast enough to hand-hold without blur - 1/60 second being a common threshold. Resist the urge to zoom when hand-holding in low-light conditions because you will increase your chance of blurring the pic - getting a sharp pic is essential because then you can digitally zoom/crop later in post-processing** (<-- shoot in large/fine format so you can get the most of your available 24 megapixels)

**You will take a TON of pics on a chase, then get home and find your camera didn't record the scene like it appeared to your eyes. It's NOT the camera - we ALL deal with this, so get familiar with photoshop or similar editing utilities to help you recreate the contrast and pull out the colors so you can show others what YOU saw. It's not cheating - even the most expensive camera can't replicate the dynamic range and color complexities of the human eye.

I shot the pic below with my D5300 and the 18-140mm kit lens.

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Best wishes,

TR
 

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Wide to chase, wide/zoom for lightning.

I shot a bolt from strasburg colorado last summer with my 300...according to radarscope, that storm was over 180 miles away. Granted its no wall hanger, but I caught it.

I love lightning.
 
Doug I shoot Nikon also. Any of Nikon's lenses that start at 18mm will do a repectable job (18-55, 18-105, etc). But I really like the 12-24 zoom. Both Nikon and Tokina make a version. I have the Tokina and I love it. It can capture a really large chunk of sky and can be found for around $350.
 
Thank you Wes i am checking out all the options and optics as well hope i get some great shots this chase season so i can share them with all of you
 
I use 18-55 or 28-80 for lightning / weather. I also do a lot of weather photojournalism so I use a 70-200 2.8 as well. I shoot with Canons for no other reason that when I bought my first camera it was Canon because it was on sale lol. After that I just stuck with that brand.
 
I just want to thank you all for advise..I have been getting used to my new camera and i think i am going to love this camera and its features.. Cant wait to chase with it.
 
I have a 16-50 in a Sony mount but wanted something wider, Picked up a sigma 8-16 so far i love it you can get some nice for ground in the shot as well :) its a bit slow with the widest aperture being 4.5 tho
 

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Doing a balancing act between fast glass and cost is an ongoing issue for nearly everyone. I recently had the chance to try out a Sigma 20mm f/1.8 and initially thought I had found the holy grail of lenses - a very fast wide-angle lens for $400.... but after shooting with it for a few weeks I noticed it wasn't very sharp when shooting it wide open so it might as well have been a 4.5 because I had to stop it down a bit. Now I am looking at a Tokina 16-28mm f/2.8 but it costs substantially more money. It will be interesting to watch the evolution of sensor technology, since some of the newer DSLR sensors have extremely low noise at higher ISO's and can offset the use of slower lenses somewhat.
 
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