A Supercell Caught inTexas by Mike Olbinski

Find more of my work here: http://www.mikeolbinski.com Also follow me on Instragram for storm photos and whatnot - http://instagram.com/mikeolbinski Still print of this storm can be found here if interested: http://gallery.mikeolbinski.com/stormchasing/h6015e87e#h6015e87e 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. A few miles south is where part two picks up. And I didn't realize how fast it was moving south, so part three is just me panning the camera to the left. During that third part you can see dust along the cornfield being pulled into the storm as well...part of the strong inflow. The final part is when the storm had started dying out and we shot lightning as it passed over us. Between the third and fourth portions we drove through Booker, Texas where tornado sirens were going off...it was creepy as all heck. And intense. I hope you enjoy this. Once thing I've learned about timelapsing is that I always wish it would be longer or wouldn't end. I wish I had been south and been able to record this storm come at me for 45 minutes. But I love it the way it is. I wasn't ever certain I'd see structure like this even though it's been such a goal of mine. But we did it. And by we, I mean myself and my buddy Andy Hoeland, who knows his crap and got us into position so we could chase this storm. Without him along I don't know if I get this timelapse.

Arizona photographer Mike Olbinski got this amazing video of the formation of a gigantic rotating supercell near Booker, Texas on June 3.

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Lightning Played in Super Slo-Mo

Incredible footage of a lightning strike slowed down. One strike of lightning (1 second) turns into 3 minutes of footage. See what few people ever see! Lightning physicist Vladislav Mazur and meteorologist Tom Warner watch a video of a lightning strike that has been slowed down so 1 second of footage is played back as 6 minutes of film.

Lightning happens in under a sec, but when shot at over 11,000 frames per sec, we can see all of the creeping details as it flashes through in over 3 minutes. Stunning.​

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4 - Tornados in Timelapse

Chapter 19 from the Storm Lapse DVD with commentary: June 17, 2010 Southern Minnesota tornadoes. Time lapse of several tornadoes in southern Minnesota, including the mile wide Conger EF4. Music is courtesy Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com

Amateur storm chaser and videographer Skip Talbot explains:

The video was shot at 30 fps, and then sped up four times. When it’s sped up, four frames are blended into one. This 4x video was sped up another four times, the frames blended again. The result is very smooth. The trick is starting with video that’s been shot with exposure times close to the length of time between frames. I get this automatically using a camcorder. A still time-lapse with large time gaps between frames would require filters to extend exposure time and eliminate stutter

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Quotes of the Day
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Quote of the Day - from Osho
Quote of the Day - from Osho
Quotes for the turning of the year – 2016
Quotes for the turning of the year – 2016
QOTD - Zen Aphorism
QOTD - Zen Aphorism
QOTD - Lawrence Durell
QOTD - Lawrence Durell
QOTD - Tom Stoppard
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1 - Surf Lake Michigan

On Tuesday I was able to head out to Holland MI and experience some of the pure energy our great lakes can produce. Beautiful and graceful in Slow Motion. At real speed it made it made you feel small and out of control. Camera: FS700 Picture Profile 5 Graded in CS6 using magic bullet Mojo Music: Radiohead "All I Need"

Not your ordinary surf footage, this storm produced break off of Holland, MI this fall is pretty astounding.

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Gift Guides

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my Pick - 5 things to buy the Aspiring Surfer in your life - Ashton Goggans
my Pick - 5 things to buy the Aspiring Surfer in your life - Ashton Goggans

Surfing has such a place in our national imagination, and rightly so, if you ask me. It is addictive and simple. It is relaxing and exciting. It is showy and low-key. 

With that in mind, we've asked our surfer-cum-writer friend, Ashton Goggans to pick 5 things to get anyone aspiring to a wet life.

 
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My Pick - 5 things to buy an aspiring Videographer - Stephen McFadden
My Pick - 5 things to buy an aspiring Videographer - Stephen McFadden

Video is the new reading, the new literacy. And that makes videographers (camera operators, directors of photography, etc etc) the new scribes, wielding immense power in the capturing and communication of ideas and experiences. 

Get 5 things in your Inbox

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3 - Hurricane Sandy NYC Timelapses

Uploaded by SMvideoChan on 2012-10-31.

5 of the best.

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Timelapse of Hurricane Sandy over Downtown Manhattan Taken from Brooklyn Heights

Please be sure to watch in HD! Time lapse of the city as the power went for half of Manhattan during Hurricane Sandy. Major Power Outage is at 00:08 Time lapse filmed on Monday 10/29/12. I made this into a bumper for Late Night With Jimmy Fallon so you might have seen it on Tuesdays episode!

On October 29th 2012, Hurricane Sandy made landfall near New York, NY. Starting at 5pm EST, these images were captured overlooking 42nd street and 10th avenue in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, New York, New York, USA. Over a period of 5h30m, this video was produced as a time lapse taking one image every two seconds. The camera was a Samsung Galaxy Nexus running Android Jelly Bean 4.1.2. The video is 5m19s in length and there is no audio. Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/glunardi

I captured this by writing a script to grab a copy of the latest image from the webcam NYTimes have pointed out over NYC. Runs from about Noon on the 29th Of October, till about half nine am on the 30th October, 2012.

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Timelapse Map

Poem of the Day