Your best ORIGINAL weather shots. Edited shots not welcome!

[cdcollura]

Good day all,

Here's my first really good shot from WAY back in July 1987 of a weak tornado north of Hollywood, Florida and crossing I-95. The un-touched picture's view is to the south.

Below is the chase-log entry for that same date (July 7, 1987)...

JUL 7, 1987 ... 6:00 PM - Penetration and interception of an extremely severe thunderstorm supercell and tornado touchdown along Interstate 95 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This storm was a rare classic supercell that contained large hail, unconfirmed public reports as large as baseballs, and destructive winds. The chase, accompanied by guest Tony Ihrig, went south along Interstate 95 from Pompano Beach to Fort Lauderdale. A punch through the western edge of the high precipitation core was executed where hail over an inch was observed along with 65 to 70-MPH winds, torrential rains, and continuous lightning with close hits. The rain free base was encountered near Fort Lauderdale airport where a tornado was observed about two miles ahead crossing Interstate 95. The rain free base contained a large wall cloud with strong mesocyclonic rotation. The precipitation even wrapped around the "bear's cage" forming a hook echo precipitation pattern as the tornado was touching down. Debris was observed from both the tornado touchdown as well as from the powerful outflow of the storm to the east. Documentation for this storm was still photos, including the tornado touchdown. Trees and powerlines were downed in this storm, with a roof torn off a home where the tornado hit. Hail damage and flooding also occurred under the worst part of the storm core. A 1984 Chrysler Laser was used to chase the storm, which was caused by extreme instability. An upper trough, surface trough, and daytime heating allowed this supercell to develop. The storm itself was over 20 miles wide and 67,000 feet high during its most active cycle.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Staight off the memory card. Though looks like no matter when I upload them to, the quality gets dumbed down for some reason.

 

[Amanda Farnham]

Staight off the memory card. Though looks like no matter when I upload them to, the quality gets dumbed down for some reason.

Those are still lovely pictures, and the quality looks fine.

 

[Jarrod Barnett]

^^^ what she said!

The pics look great!

 

[Sean Ramsey]

Here's a shot I took west of Vici, OK during a chase around May 20th or so...

 

[KendraReed]

How is this for unedited...these were shot from my blackberry...

 

[Melanie Kern-Favilla]

This is my favorite shelf cloud pic of all time. I guess I'm a bit of a purist, but I have never used post processing on any of my photos. It's just a personal choice.

John, just curious, but what do you shoot? Do you shoot film? Digital? RAW? JPG?

I'm assuming that because you're considering yourself a purist, that you're shooting film?

IMHO, film photos don't really require any sort of post processing, not like shooting RAW does. If you are shooting RAW, I think you're really selling your images short by not doing at least some PP. Just my opinion, of course...

 

[Adam Lucio]

Taken July 13th 1997 with a Kodak fun saver. Doesn't get more original than that.

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

John, just curious, but what do you shoot? Do you shoot film? Digital? RAW? JPG?

I'm assuming that because you're considering yourself a purist, that you're shooting film?

IMHO, film photos don't really require any sort of post processing, not like shooting RAW does. If you are shooting RAW, I think you're really selling your images short by not doing at least some PP. Just my opinion, of course...

Unless your final product is a negative and you never plan to make prints or scan the negative to make it digital, you're going to need post processing. The only film that doesn't need any post processing whatsoever after chemical development (which is a form of post processing, BTW, though when done to "spec" should be uniform across all batches, though of course still determined by the chemists who created the film and the development process) to be considered "final product" is slide film. Polaroid used to also qualify, but alas Polaroid is no more. People who shoot negative film recreationally are often used to looking at prints as being something that are natural extensions of the film and that all prints will come out uniform no matter where or how you process them, and that's just not the case. Printmaking is an entire art unto itself. Even printmaking at the local Walgreens is dependent on hardware, built-in software algorithms, chemistry, and whether or not the operator is manually adjusting each print. Two prints printed at two different print shops are unlikely to come out looking the same.

Even Susan's stuff (which is awesome, BTW!) that is all shot on slides is post processed -- at least the version we're viewing it here. Once you make a digital conversion, you've applied some level of post processing. And Susan's work would look different on different types of slide films or using different lenses or camera settings, etc. We have to stop thinking of cameras as "reality capturing devices" that intrinsically relate a uniform story of existence that parallels with the tales that our visual cortex tells and instead see it as more of an artist's tool that can be as honest or as fantastical as the artist wishes. Whether the "processing" is done in camera or afterwards is only relevant on a level of technical trivia.

I agree with you bigtime about RAW images, though --RAW images by definition require post processing; you can't even see them until you do it. They also require manual control of contrast, sharpness, etc, since the camera is not doing any of it for you and since the sensor is designed to provide more dynamic range than your monitor can display at once with an 8 bit JPG file (you essentially have to decide what slice of that range you want to display as the final product, something that is done automagically when you shoot JPG).

 

[John Hudson]

John, just curious, but what do you shoot? Do you shoot film? Digital? RAW? JPG?

I'm assuming that because you're considering yourself a purist, that you're shooting film?

IMHO, film photos don't really require any sort of post processing, not like shooting RAW does. If you are shooting RAW, I think you're really selling your images short by not doing at least some PP. Just my opinion, of course...

Hi Melanie:

All of my photos have been JPG's up until this past July, when I finally began shooting in RAW (a larger hard drive is definitely in my near future).

Maybe you're right about PP, but aside from the outrageous price of the software (thinking about PS, here) I've always been uncomfortable about modifying my photos in any way.

Perhaps it's time I left my cave?

And to Ryan: I should probably clarify what I mean when I say "post processing". I'm talking about Photoshopping, or the use of any other software to retouch photographs.

Why do I "need" post processing? I have a number of lightning photographs that were printed right off the Compact Flash card (my old camera) at the photo lab, and put into frames on my wall. I'm completely satisfied with the way they look.

John
VE4 JTH


John
VE4 JTH

 

[Melanie Kern-Favilla]

This should probably be in a different thread at this point, but...

All of my photos have been JPG's up until this past July, when I finally began shooting in RAW (a larger hard drive is definitely in my near future).

JPGs are processed a LOT in camera.

Maybe you're right about PP, but aside from the outrageous price of the software (thinking about PS, here) I've always been uncomfortable about modifying my photos in any way.

I understand, John. I started out this way myself. But once you see the difference between unprocessed RAW and processed RAW, I think it's hard to deny the impact.

Here is one photo of a water drop collision, shown three ways:

First is unprocessed RAW (except for the necessary conversion to JPG). You can see how 'flat' the photo is.
Second is only a Curves adjustment in PS, which enhances contrast.
Third is additional processing (and I still haven't applied noise reduction).

I hate to pull back the curtain on stuff like this, but I think it makes a good example of what decent PP can do...(at least IMO!)

Now, I'm not suggesting that you do the heavy PP with your storm photos. There comes a point where they lose their realistic view. But a little adjustment here and there on a RAW 'negative' might help out a lot.

Perhaps it's time I left my cave?

Maybe. Just maybe.

FYI: More water drop pix here:
http://photos.spiffypix.com/highspeed

 

[Brandon Headley]

 

[Susan Strom]

To Ryan's post, no I do not process. Here are a few things about Arizona for those who are interested. Basically, I don't do anything, I open my camera and let my beautiful state show off on slide film. That's pretty much it.

These work for me...

-I only do photojournalism of the lightning storms with analog slide film camera. The exposure is all manual, primitive but effective

-I don't make any changes with Photoshop.

-Avoiding the hard light of midday, I shoot by the soft light of dawn, dusk, or at night.

-If there is thin cloud cover in a desert afternoon, a photographer may be rewarded with a brilliant, albeit brief, opportunity. On the horizon, the setting sun might cause a veil of sunlight to illuminate the desert in kind of an otherworldly fashion, and even turning the mountains purple. This will happen only once every so often (for those willing to wait 2 hours on some freezing ridge for it). During this 30 second "magic" window at sunset, I have seen Harleys pull over in the middle of Interstate 40 to dig cameras out of their bags.

-Patient desert photographers who chase vivid, ruby-colored mesas here have the same problem that Arizona Highways magazine did when it was banned in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

It was assumed that the double-page spreads with all those luscious, honey-lit Arizona cliffs were pumped up and printed on glossy paper to showcase some kind of propagandized American Eden.

The sweeping landscapes of Arizona Highways are not cooked...they are agonized over by photographers who sleep in the wild on the edge of some mesa, to get that one spear of sunlight striking the Grand Canyon at dawn.

The kind of light in the Southwest that might reward the patient is worth the bugs, wind, lightning, scorpions, and the drunken ranch hand shooting saguaro with a rusty Colt. (By the way...don't shoot cactus with a rusty Colt. They'll fall on the trigger-happy with a vicious revenge).

So that's basically it...chasing Arizona via photojournalism. Exposure secret: at the right time. You can put the Photoshop away, you won't need it. But if you shoot authentic AZ, you'll have a memory to keep, and it will be on film just as you saw it happen.

There's no place like home (click click)

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

To Ryan's post, no I do not process. .

You don't, but your scanner and your scanner software does. This isn't a bad thing, it just is what it is. If we scanned your slide with twelve different scanners using twelve different scanning software suites, you'd get twelve different scans that each look a bit different (dramatically different, in some cases).

Your slides themselves aren't post processed at all beyond the initial development, but what we see here is processed; you've just opted to allow software and firmware engineers to do the processing for you.

 

[Susan Strom]

If the lab has a slight shift upon digitizing we can watch for it, mitigate it, and when our stuff goes to print, then there's magazine & newspaper ink too plus TV broadcast RGB, therefore more inevitable handling by technologies.

There's no avoiding other hands touching it, but a good lab will always strive to protect the picture's integrity, and not allow funkiness in the work. (I am loyal to my own lab Tempe Camera). A good magazine will watch their art dept's scans and hopefully drum-scan for reprographics therefore keeping the integrity close at hand as well (one can hope).

You can control what you can, to keep any shifts to a minimum, and make sure that what you're looking at is true to what happened, quality-controlling our stuff and striving for photographic trueness the best you can. Even Natl Geographic has to deal with it. Arizona Highways too. That's all we can do when we choose not to edit. cheers