The Blog

A great day to chase the Monsoon!

Finally, as we wind down the rather weak monsoon season here in Phoenix, Arizona, we were provided a great day of chasing.

This year, in very similar fashion to last years lack of storms, had us chasing storms that would collapse as the day neared evening time.

A week ago today, upon returning from capturing the exciting Total Solar Eclipse up in Casper, Wyoming, radar showed promise as a line of storms generated very near the Mexican border and worked their way to the northeast, passing thru Green Valley, Marana, Picacho and later at night visited most of the Valley with a wonderful lightning show.

These images were captured with my Canon 1DX Mark II and the Canon 5D Mark IV. I chose a few lenses that would allow me to capture what I saw. I used the EF 16-35mm 2.8 ver III, the 24-105 mm f/4 and my EF 28-300mm 3.5-5.6 IS lens.

The rewarding part of storm chasing is two-fold. Of course it is gratifying to capture wonderful compositions with strong subject matter, like a good foreground, great cloud structure and some exciting cloud to ground (CG) lightning. The second part of the chase is simply about the chase. Trying to intercept storms and being fortunate enough to be there waiting when show time begins.

All of the images that I post are made by cropping in the camera. That being said, these are all full-frame images (not compared to an APS-C type of sensor) and they are not cropped at all. The fun of seeing the storm, putting yourself near something to compliment the CG and make a nice photograph.

Capturing lightning during daytime hours does require a few things in order to be successful. The first and foremost is a good Lightning Trigger. There are many brands that make devices that capture lightning and other effects. I choose to use a brand called LightningTrigger. (http://store.lightningtrigger.com) to help capture my images. I have found this brand to be very consistent where I cannot say that about the other brands!

I hope that you enjoy these images captured on Tuesday, August 22, 2017. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we get to chase another few days before the monsoon leaves us until next year.