Storm season preparation tips, cameras and gear. Different cameras I use videoing and photographing storms, tornadoes and lightning. Depending on what the storm is doing will determine whether I grab a Sony or a Nikon.

MY CAMERA GEAR:
I get a lot of comments from people asking what camera I use… Well, I use about five of them depending on what the storm is doing. Below are descriptions and information about Nikon and Sony cameras.

Everything you see on this channel through 2015 was shot with Nikons namely a D7100, D7000, D300, D200 and a few film bodies namely the nikon FM, FE and FE2. In 2016 my primary video camera was the Sony a7s ii. This camera is incredible with amazing low light sensitivity and internal 4K video. However there are several cons to using this camera for storm chasing. We'll get to that...

NIKON D7100 and NIKON D7000
These two affordable cameras do their jobs well. High quality high resolution stills and great HD video. One thing I particularly like about these cameras is they do pretty well capturing lightning video for a camera with a rolling shutter. They especially excel shooting RAW stills that I animate into storm time lapses.

NIKON D300 & D200
This camera is pretty much outdated and I hardly use it. I leave a 80-200mm 2.8 lens on it for shooting tornadoes miles away. I would not recommend this camera to anyone as Nikon has several options that are more up to date. Wanna buy mine? :)

THE SONY a7s ii
This camera seemed like the answer to all of my problems. Internal 4K and incredible lowlight sensitivity were the primary reasons I purchased this beast. In the long run, the Sony a7s ii was two steps forward and one step back. The rolling shutter on this camera creates the worst jello I've seen and it's almost impossible to capture lightning on video that is not ruined with rolling shutter partial exposures. In the hundreds of lightning strikes I shot with the sony a7s2, only a 2 or three are salvageable.

Another issue with the Sony a7s ii is the overheating. While chasing tornadoes there are a lot of things you need to worry about so adding to the list is not ideal. I have to constantly monitor this camera's temperature so that I can swap it out prior to it shutting off. Sooner or later I will likely get hosed and miss some epic video because the camera overheated and turned itself off.

The Sony A7s ii is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to FOCUS
Any time you zoom in or out with the Sony 24-240 lens, the depth of field changes. So forget about tight focusing and zooming wide. I've never even heard of lenses that do this so my first few storm chases of 2016 were soft. Thankfully nothing amazing happened on those chases like the events that happened later in the season. Also, the camera is overall heard to focus. The little grainy LCD screen will pop in a tight window for tight focusing and this is extremely helpful, however this option does not work while you are recording. So anytime I want to zoom in or out, I have to stop recording, check focus an then start recording again. Peaking options make it a little easier.

Overall, the Sony a7s ii is an incredible camera. Sony has pulled off miracles that are affordable. If you can navigate around these issues, the camera produces amazing results. I'm starting to get a rhythm of dealing with these cons and when the camera overheats after around 30 minutes of use, I switch to my nikons for awhile.

свернуть