About the Lightning Wizard

So what stuff do I have currently in my photo bag? Since my first serious reflex camera in 1995 I collected quite a bit!

Camera equipment:

Canon EOS 5D full-frame digital SLR
EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 USM III
EF 50mm f/1.8
EF 28mm f/2.8
Sigma 20mm F1.8 EX DG RF Aspherical
Hama 0.42x semi-fisheye converter
Manfrotto 190B (Bogen 3001) with 141RC pan/tilt head
Watec 902H2-Ultimate B/W security camera with CBC Computar 12mm F0.8 lens (sprite obs)
Acer Aspire 1454LMi laptop (2004)

Till May 2006 (now much less) I also used:

Canon EOS 500n with AA grip/battery pack
Nikon Coolpix 2200
Bronica S2a (6x6 format) with a Super Komura 45mm f/4.5 and a Nikkor 75mm f/2.8
My favourite slide films: Fujichrome Provia 100F, Kodak Elite Chrome 100 (EB-3), Ektachrome 100G

Digital photography: 2006

In April 2006 I decided to buy a Canon EOS 5D, the first full-frame digital SLR camera that I can afford (well, you could also take a nice exotic vacation instead). I did not pick a cropped sensor DSLR for years, with their small viewfinders, etc (read also below). But with the flexibility advantages of digital and this camera delivering what I need, why would I still dream of upgrading to a very heavy Pentax 67 II kit? For now, I like not having to scan everything. I shoot RAW, with all flexibility in creating the best output. It *IS* filling my hard disk rapidly! Having a sequence of weather images taken from tripod in the field shows an instant time-lapse movie, very neat. Clean high ISO sensitivity on the fly is also really handy! So far I am very happy with the quality. I do need to be careful not overexposing a lightning shot. And digital will clearly not save me from dust in my pictures ;)

Lenses

From 1997 to 2000 I used a 28-80mm zoomlens but the pictures I got with it were not as crisp as with my prime lenses that I bought later and showed more distinct distortion (curved horizons that should have been straight!). I sold it to my father who is happy with it now :)
I probably use the 28mm wide angle lens the most. The 20mm lens that I bought in January 2002 offers a very distinct superwide angle perspective and can focus really close. I love it. Some people might tell you that wide angle lenses give a distorted presentation of reality. This is not exactly true - it depends on the photo viewing distance. If you want to see what it really looked like, you should view a 20mm photograph from a very close distance, so that the photograph spans the same field of view to your eye as the lens that took it. Look around in it!
The fisheye converter, which turns a 28mm lens into a 120 degree-wide circular fisheye lens, is fun at times, but needs to be stopped down over f/11 to get reasonably sharp results. I rarely use it.

Canon EOS 500n and Yashica

The battery pack is a must with the 500n. It allows you to use rechargeable or common AA batteries. If you want to do lightning photography or other long exposures, this demands a lot of battery power and would otherwise be expensive. The battery pack also provides a pleasant, sturdy grip.
My old second-hand Yashica FX-2 camera that has a light leak still had its use at night. I have captured aurora, lightning and noctilucent clouds with it. I used a Sun 28mm f/2.5 and a Yashica DSB 50mm f/1.9 lens.

Film

The films I prefered to use are slide (diapositive) films: Fujichrome Provia 100F and Kodak Ektachrome E100G or the newest Elite Chrome 100 are my favorite. Fujichrome Sensia 100 is cheap but had slightly more grain and perhaps a bit less vivid colors and contrast. Fujichrome Velvia is frequently used by landscape photographers, but its oversaturated colors and high contrast are not my taste. I tried Velvia 100F, but I found it to give more colorful pictures than there are in reality, and shadows are too black while there is also not much detail in the bright parts. So for me it wore off. I formerly used negative films Kodak 100 Gold and Fuji Superia 200, but since I´ve seen how close to reality slides look in comparison, I do not touch negative films anymore, unless I need a cheap sensitive film. Slides (and negatives as well) are easily scanned with my Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II, and showing them to friends or family is done quite simply with cheap slide viewer, while having a talk and some coffee :)

Filters

I have not used filters a lot. I have experimented with a "gradual Neutral Density" filter, this is a square filter which is half grey and half clear, and found it very useful indeed when shooting a landscape with a high contrast between the land and sky part. Usually the foreground goes black or the sky white but this filter helps to show detail in both parts. I tend to forget to use it, unfortunately. I also used a cirular polarizing filter on a few occasions. You can filter out the reflections on (for example) vegetation, so that the colors become more intense. Also, a common use of the filter is to make the blue sky darker blue than in reality. If you see postcards with very saturated colors, a deep blue sky with very bright clouds, or a tropical beach, they were taken with this filter (and probably on Velvia film). As you can read, I do not like this phoney kind of photography, even worse is using Photoshop software to add things that were not there. I do not fake images. Still, the polarizing filter is sometimes fun to use. Just do not use it when documenting purposes are important. I see my weather photography as being documentary and this filter has the potential to change a photograph too far away from reality.

Tripod

I frequently use a Manfrotto 190B (USA: Bogen 3001) tripod plus cable release for night and also for landscape and storm chasing shots, to obtain optimum sharpness, depending on the weight I want to travel with. It can be quite a pain when doing long hikes though!

Medium Format

In October 2002 I purchased a more than 30 years old Bronica S2a 6x6 medium format camera with a Nikkor 75mm f/2.8 standard lens and a Komura 45mm f/4.5 wide angle lens. The viewfinder in which you look down is pleasantly large but shows left and right in a mirrored way. You have to get used to it! Also the camera does not have a built-in light meter. The camera produces wonderful big 56mm by 56mm transparencies (or negatives) and these contain awesome detail and absence of grain. Grain can be quite noticeable in 35mm film format, especially in sky parts of the photo. In May 2005 I finally bought a Canon 9950F scanner that is capable to get them in digital form and show them at this website. But I'm behind with scanning, as usual, so please have lots of patience...

Camcorder

I use a Sony CCD-TR840E Hi-8 camcorder to record thunder and lightning. With a capture card in the computer it was easy to make movies for the web, but now since 2003/2004 I'm working on Windows XP and a laptop, not compatible with the capture card! I also lost the recording button, and due to these inconveniences I forgot about using this camcorder. I did make some timelapse movies with my webcam. However, I like how the tension is documented on video while chasing. Thunder also really rocks, although the sound quality is not really optimal to reproduce thunder well. A MiniDisc recorder and an appropriate microphone would be more suitable for that. I find it difficult to do two things at the same time - taking good video and also taking good photographs near an approaching severe thunderstorm is a hassle. I concentrate mostly on taking photographs. After all, I will look at my photographs more often than a video tape. Some things, however, cannot be missed on video, such as strong winds, rapid motions in the clouds or the spin-up of a tornado.

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