05/07/2011 Edgar County Tor. Warned HP Supercell

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I was at a loss for words because of how beautiful this beast was! There was a strange disturbance, which brought along lots of bulk shear, I believe almost past 50kts in some spots, which you can see quite well in the structure here in these images. I witnessed some of the best structure over here in East central IL! Finally scored a real storm, for once! I had an easy drive, I got on IL-16E and headed East, towards Kansas over in Edgar county. After passing a gas station in that town, I got onto IL-49N, traveled North a few miles, and couldn't really find a good spot to stop so I said the hell with it, and stopped far off on the shoulder. The road wasn't all that busy, so I thought it wouldn't do any harm stopping there. At that point, I jumped out the driver's seat, ran out into the field and took a whopping amount of exposures: some of my favorite images yet. The time I got into Kansas was 7:20pm approximately. The storm got its act together for about 10 minutes or so, then died out, once it got over a cooler air mass. There was a tightening up area of circulation, which didn't last all that long. Even if there were recent touchdowns earlier in the day, I could care less...my structure day has been accomplished!

05/06/2011 Optical Encounter

Sun pillar, 22 degree sun halo, crepuscular rays, sun dog/parhelia...yup pretty sweet stuff. Not as good as what you might catch during the winter months, but I am always up for an awesome atmospheric optic op!

04/29/2011 Highway Sun Halo

My apologies for the bad lighting and overexposed sun in these images. Getting some things done before my senior prom, we went to town and along the highway about halfway to where we needed to be - sun halo! Partial spots at times stood out more than others, the inner red and outer blue ring(s) were quite visible. As a heavier cloud deck was about to pass, the halo went away. Oh warm fronts, I love you all.

04/16/2011 Moon Iridescence/Corona

I absolutely love atmospheric optics and learning about these awesome phenomenon. I caught a couple longer exposures around midnight (I believe?) on the camera, then processed them in an instant, and here they are lol. Coronas tend to form when light diffraction occurs around the sun/moon due to water droplets and all sorts of stuff. I remember coronas by knowing they consist of water droplets, and larger particles of something, like fog, or dust (but coronas like that form from low levels other than the atmosphere up above in the sky.) The bigger mass of the water particle or whatever causes the corona. Also, an aureole, which is made up of a beautifully colored fat-like set of rings which surround the sun or moon, is what makes the corona's great appearance. If you let the shutter run for a longer amount of time at night, watch out and make sure the moon isn't overexposing too much, otherwise you will get a very bright, washed out looking corona.

04/01/2011 April Foolin' on Mother Nature

Wow is all I can say regarding this day. 2011 has actually been a great start for me involving photography. It seems like *not going to jinx myself here* I've ran into the moments all at the right time...so far lol. April Fool's day this year was perfect. Absolutely gorgeous rain showers turned into epic back-lit madness, then quickly they became small thunderstorms. They produced a small amount of lightning, pushing eastward during pre-dusk. The lighting became magnificent - even scary at some points. What looked like a mock "RFD" or rear flank of this small storm cluster, they had quite the coloration and low, ragged structure. All in all, they were harmless rain showers! :) The added rainbow and clouds were sure a sight, too. In the end of my awesome photography outing, there was an amazing twilight following all the action including some lightning. Score.

11/04/2010 Sweet November Rain Showers

*05/03/2011 EDIT*

This was an amazing day for sure. Most the time, I capture the greatest photo ops from "out of the blue." I was driving home from school on a rainy day (and the song goes... November Rain lol) and happened to notice dark, elevated showers to my East, especially. I gunned it home to go get my camera and then went up North of town to get a clear view all around, and this is what it got me. I feel like bashing my head for each time I get too lazy to load the camera up on the tripod, because no matter what...even using F/3.5, ISO 100 with a fast shutter speed still gets me un-sharp images. Thank god for Adobe Photoshop's infamous Unsharp Mask, it kinda helps cover up the blur in some wrecked shots, SOMETIMES.

05/03/2010 Three Storms, One Day

Very hectic day in the central Illinois area, especially when it comes to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. To sum this chase up, it was of course, local. I must add, the convection happened to be somewhat weak, and elevated; although, these situations provided amazing colors and lighting effects to the storm structure(s). Just these few images in this account all include a "taste" of traveling S on IL I-57 from Champaign, to Coles County. In the two to three hour time span of driving around and coming home from a sibling's doctor visit, and an excited me happened to be sitting in the back, with the camera pointing N and E just about the whole time, trying to get some structure images. On I-57, my camera was set on Av Priority, and the F/stop was at F/7.1. No tripod, low ISO, and slow shutter speed happened to lightly blur images; keeping in mind traveling at 65mph doesn't help either lol. After getting home, another round of storms popped into the area. These were much weaker, not even severe warned such as the convection near Champaign. Around Oakland, IL, was where this "next round" happened to occur. The coolest lighting and structure views were quite persistent, with lots of lightning, which is really sweet to see during the daytime. At this point, the camera was on the tripod, finally. One of the best photo op memories yet!

Distance traveled: approx. 80 miles or so, to and back from the rural Champaign, IL area.

Pretty much, I am a beginner at photography stuff at the moment. Learning different camera modes all on my own, and sadly enough, I shot all these pictures in Auto Exposure Priority on my Canon Rebel. At some point though, if I can remember right, some of the shots were taken in Av Priority (which allows you to control the aperture/lens opening, which is also known as "depth-of-field") including ISO control, the film-sensor speed. The lower the ISO number, the better the quality the exposure will be...including the slower shutter speed. That's one thing I screwed up terribly this day. Happening to leave the ISO mode on Auto, it exposed all images at-least ISO 200-640, not a good thing for future high-resolution prints, post-processing, and more. A hint for controlling ISO - when using a lower ISO and low aperture/F-stop, be sure to load the camera up on a tripod or some kind of sturdy surface, it helps very much lol.