We had a nasty little storm pass over us a few days ago. I watch as it seemed to build up all around us and thought I'd better get in the air to see what's going on. I know a few others on here close to me, got up to get some storm/lightning shots too. I kept panning around to watch as each quadrant seems to be building up and moving closer. There was thick cloud to the west with lashings of rain dropping below the clouds and the sun was setting at the same time.
This gave amazing lighting situations from the west, north and east, with some interesting stuff to the south as well. However, the best stuff was west to east. As the rain was approaching and the sun was getting closer to the horizon, I thought I'd better get some stills shot with the hopes of creating a panoramic scene or two, as things developed. It was changing by the minute and I got several series but this one was one of the last ones, just before the rain hit, so I had to quickly land because I was sure there was a gust front coming with those clouds and rain that I could see off to the west.
This is a low quality image to save space because the 84inch by 24 inch pano was well over 30MB and would not load. I dropped the size and DPI down to get this small enough to be able to load here. I got some nice lightning shots too but will have to find them later. The rain was just dumping down under some of these storm clouds out in the lake and the setting sun was lighting up some parts of the clouds close to the water, with a golden orange light and then above was white and dark grey clouds with some blue sky showing, just before it all went very dark and wet.
I'm glad I took the time to get airborne and be able to see this scene, because it looked nothing like this from the ground. In fact, it did not look like much of anything but I just had a feeling something was going on. This scene is about 8 images stitched together from roughly NW to due East view point, Cleveland in the distance is due east of me. There was more great stuff to the west but it just gets too big to try and stitch it all together, as one wide image.
This gave amazing lighting situations from the west, north and east, with some interesting stuff to the south as well. However, the best stuff was west to east. As the rain was approaching and the sun was getting closer to the horizon, I thought I'd better get some stills shot with the hopes of creating a panoramic scene or two, as things developed. It was changing by the minute and I got several series but this one was one of the last ones, just before the rain hit, so I had to quickly land because I was sure there was a gust front coming with those clouds and rain that I could see off to the west.
This is a low quality image to save space because the 84inch by 24 inch pano was well over 30MB and would not load. I dropped the size and DPI down to get this small enough to be able to load here. I got some nice lightning shots too but will have to find them later. The rain was just dumping down under some of these storm clouds out in the lake and the setting sun was lighting up some parts of the clouds close to the water, with a golden orange light and then above was white and dark grey clouds with some blue sky showing, just before it all went very dark and wet.
I'm glad I took the time to get airborne and be able to see this scene, because it looked nothing like this from the ground. In fact, it did not look like much of anything but I just had a feeling something was going on. This scene is about 8 images stitched together from roughly NW to due East view point, Cleveland in the distance is due east of me. There was more great stuff to the west but it just gets too big to try and stitch it all together, as one wide image.
