8-13-10 Electrified North/South 100

A perfect example of why I should take my camera everywhere, even if I am not planning on taking photos. To bad I had dirt on the main unit lense... Oh well. Here are my first daytime lightning shots ever. This was before one of the crown jewels of dirt late model racing, the North/South 100 at Florence Speedway got started a few weeks ago. A severe squall line went through the area with a TON of cloud to ground lightning. The racetrack luckily sat on a hill which gave me a great view to the north. Luckily the majority of the rain stayed to the north and south and they got the show in later in the evening.


Here is the racetrack in the foreground with the lightning. These were all taken with ~2 second exposures, f-stop at ~20 and iso at 100.


I zoomed in for some closer shots, awesome. Probably the luckiest I have ever been with lightning.




The shelf cloud organized as the storms went outflow dominant. Here is my buddy Links about to be eaten alive.


A dark panorama of the shelf cloud. Don't like to edit my images so I left it how it was. How photography should be done, enhancement free.


This just flat out furiates me. Look at all the people standing around still and standing on the bleachers. You can see lightning in the background at the edge of the shelf. How stupid can you be to not take cover when lightning is hitting that close? Can't people ever listen and understand a killer part of nature when they see it?


I got a SINGLE meteor a few weeks ago as well but it was so faint I didn't feel it needed posted. Will likely shoot the CRA Super Series race this weekend at Columbus Motor Speedway. No tstms in the forecast for the next week or so either...hello SDS (supercell deprivation syndrome) developing again...going to be a long winter...

-Chip