Still shot of the Supercell near Booker, Texas – photo by Mike Olbinski (copyright, rights reserved)
Photographer Mike Olbinski was on the road, near Booker, Texas, when the storm rolled in. According to him, he was on the wrong side of the storm to get great photos, and he set up at the wrong spot . . .
Judge for yourself:
Olbinski said at Vimeo:
Find more of my work here: mikeolbinski.com
Also follow me on Instragram for storm photos and whatnot – instagram.com/mikeolbinski
Still print of this storm can be found here if interested: gallery.mikeolbinski.com/stormchasing/h6015e87e#h6015e87e
Technical deets: Canon 5D2, Rokinon 14mm 2.8…first three clips were at 1-second intervals = 880ish photos, the last sequence was around 90, 5-second exposures
Music by Kevin MacLeod – incompetech.com/
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It took four years but I finally got it.
A rotating supercell. And not just a rotating supercell, but one with insane structure and amazing movement.
I’ve been visiting the Central Plains since 2010. Usually it’s just for a day, or three, or two…but it took until the fourth attempt to actually find what I’d been looking for. And boy did we find it.
No, there was no tornado. But that’s not really what I was after. I’m from Arizona. We don’t get structure like this. Clouds that rotate and look like alien spacecraft hanging over the Earth.
We chased this storm from the wrong side (north) and it took us going through hail and torrential rains to burst through on the south side. And when we did…this monster cloud was hanging over Texas and rotating like something out of Close Encounters.
The timelapse was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II with a Rokinon 14mm 2.8 lens. It’s broken up into four parts. The first section ends because it started pouring on us. We should have been further south when we started filming but you never know how long these things will last, so I started the timelapse as soon as I could.
One thing to note early on in the first part is the way the rain is coming down on the right and actually being sucked back into the rotation. Amazing.
(Read more there.)
More time-lapse clouds and storms, and photos you can buy, at Olbinski’s blog.
Related articles
Insane Timelapse of a Rotating Supercell Looks Like an Alien Spaceship (universetoday.com)
Witness the terrifying birth of a supercell thunderstorm (philosophers-stone.co.uk)
Watch the incredible birth of a supercell thunderstorm (treehugger.com)
Beautiful video of a supercell thunderstorm (boingboing.net)
Filed under: Nature, photography Tagged: booker texas, Mike Olbinski, Nature, photography, Supercell