FAQ

Do I give advice on buying cameras and/or lenses? No. All I know is Canon works for me, namely the digital rebel series. As far as lenses, you get what you pay for. I like the ones I have now, listed below. There are a billion review sites to look around for camera reviews/info. I have zero desire to do it and don't know anything about other cameras anyway...or other lenses. All I'll say is try to get a SLR camera that allows you to change lenses. Then remember the glass(lens) is more important than the camera body. A lens will hold its value, a camera won't. I pretty much feel my rebels are disposables. I'll get a couple years out of one then upgrade. Do I critique and give advice on people's images? No. There are sites for that... http://www.photosig.com is one. My thoughts don't matter and there's only so much to comment about anyway. Just browse images and see what works and what doesn't, and practice. The best advice is simply being inspired, which leads to motivation, as well as seeing what works for you. If you go to that sig site, and look at the highest rated images, you'll probably wind up inspired. I know that's what got me moving, back when I had my first digital camera, in 2002. The critiquing aspect of it though, well is largely pointless. One person says to do this, another says it's better as it is. It only matters what you think of your photo, and there's only so many obvious things that "should" be done, such as a level horizon(maybe!). Do I take peope with on chases? No. Not at all. Out of my 200+ chases now, I've never once taken anyone. I have a few chaser friends I meet up with on the road from time to time, and that's fun, but as far as taking people with, nope. There's really only a couple I know that I meet up with sometimes. Taking someone with just sounds like it would have too many negative aspects to it. Decision making is pretty darn simple with one person(only yourself to blame or feel sorry for). You are your only responsibility when you go alone(get as close as you want, stay as far as you want). You decide when to end the chase or keep it going, no one else. No picking up or dropping off location issues when you are alone. You can blare the radio, and jam out in the car when you are alone, lol. I've just grown to love and need the whole alone aspect of chasing, at least as far as having my own ride and not being responsible for anyone at all. I don't see it ever changing, even if gas costs an arm and a leg. As easy as it is to get data/internet on the road now, no one needs to be taken out by someone. Most of us didn't need to be taken out when we started, and we didn't have data either. I really don't get why so many want it done that way. Buy some chase videos, read a bit online, go and watch, and learn. It's not that complicated to see what's actually dangerous and what's not. Do I send hi-res files for personal use?  No.  What's in the wallpaper section is all I currently have to offer...and that is for--computer wallpaper use only. (So it is clear, I do send hi-res files for stock sales.) Do I send files instead of prints so people can print them themselves?  No.  I've stopped doing this.    Equipment FAQ What camera equipment/gear do I use? All I have are 3 digital rebels(300D, 350D/xt and 450D/XSi) for the camera. For the lenses I have 4, a Canon 50 mm F/1.8, a Canon 10-22mm F/3.5-4.5 EF-S, a Canon 100-400mm F/4.5-5.6 L IS, and a Canon 17-40L F4. 2002-2003 everything was shot with a Sony DSC F707. 2004-2005 everything was shot with the first digital rebel, the 300D(2004 I only had the kit lens....in 2005 I replaced it with the 17-40L). 2006 through summer 2008 was with the Rebel XT. There on so far with the Rebel XSi. What do I use for video? 96-1999 I used a c-vhs.....I think it was a canon but maybe not. 2000-2001 I used a sony Hi-8. 2002-2003 I used a sony digital 8(trv-340). 2004-2005 I used a sony mini-dv(trv-19). 2006 on I'm using a Sony HC1 HDV cam. Above is what I use. Left side is the Sony HC1, and HDV video camera which sucks bad in low light(you'd think for $1400 it would be MUCH better than it is in that regard). Next to it with the red ring is the Canon 17-40L F4 lens. They put the red ring on their L series glass. Then the Rebel XT with the Canon EF-S 10-22mm lens attached. That lens rules. The 17-40L is rarely used now. I'm pondering selling it and getting the Canon 24-105L to fill that gap. The lens on the right is the Canon 100-400L IS. It's extended to 400mm in the picture. It's really a big tank and is suprising if you've never had a lens that big before. With it you don't mount it to the camera, you mount the camera to it, lol. I still have mixed feelings on it. It's the second copy, as I sent my first one back for being excessively soft. It's better, but I do not trust the auto focus on it. IS(image stabilization) works some serious wonders! If you get a telephoto I wouldn't get one without that. Equipment used for data/chasing: 99-2001 NOAA weather radio was it. 2002-2004 I started using a cell phone connected to a laptop for data in digital areas where I could get it. I also got delorme street atlas with GPS in 2003(I think it was 2003). GPS is such a useful tool when chasing. I used libraries a good deal in 2004 along with the cell phone(but half the chases it wouldn't work). In 2005 I bought xm wx-worx. It is a wonderful tool for radar and surface data as you can get the data anywhere and everywhere since it is via satellite. It wasn't that cheap however at about $900 for the hardware and software alone. Also in 2005 I started using WI-FI. I'm almost thinking had I used WI-FI before buying the wx-worx reciever I might not have bothered with it. WI-FI takes the place of libraries and can be found about anywhere now. With WI-FI and my xm wx-worx I never use my cell phone anymore. That is all the stuff I have for chasing. I don't use my scanner for NOAA at all now since it is pretty useless--that and I lost an antenna the chase after I had replaced the one I had just lost. So for equipment my car is very bare. Other than hail dents, one wouldn't know I was a chaser if they saw me stopped on a road somewhere, since there really isn't a single antenna now(other than the one for xm which is a tiny magnet you don't really see). Well I sold my xm wx-worx reciever last fall(2006) and am now using a data connection through Alltel.  It's only $25 extra on the voice plan for unlimited data.  It does not take away from your cell phone minutes so there's no worry about that.  It's really a hard deal to beat.  Now I have internet most anywhere I go on the plains, with much of Nebraska and Kansas having high speed(400-700k average, bursts to 2.4m).  The areas that aren't high speed are still 144k, twice the speed of dial up, which is more than enough for chasing.  What do I use for mounts? I have a suction cup mount for the dash that I rarely used. Now that I have this new cam it won't work on my dash. What I do have that I use all the time are 2 window clamp mounts. I never use a tripod when chasing now. These window clamps are extremely useful for chasing. You just stop with your window facing the way you want and slap the cams on there. I'm a chicken of lightning anyway so this really helps out. It's also much quicker than getting out and setting up a tripod so you'll do it more often. They are only like $25 a piece so there's really no reason not to get one or two. Since I chase alone and am doing video AND stills, I have to cut corners and do what I can to speed things up. What photo and video software do I use? For photos I use Adobe Photoshop CS. I shoot strictly in RAW format now, though I don't do a whole lot to the photos during RAW conversion. For video I use Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 for the capture and editing. For the dvd creation I use TMPGEnc products for encoding and authoring(pretty hard to beat the quality at the price).

Severe Weather FAQ/Talk Why don't we see storms like those on this site? I've been asked a good question about the look of the storms on this site and why people don't see them look like this where they live. There are a few factors to this. First and most imporant is likely just the region of the US one lives in. Big severe storms need good moisture/juice and in this area that comes from the gulf of Mexico. If you are west of the Rocky Mountains this good moisture really doesn't get over there. The Pacific Ocean waters are pretty cool up and down the west coast compared to the gulf of Mexico waters. For severe weather you'll want warm moisture near the surface. You can get "too much" moisture if you get too far east of the Rockies. When there is "too much" moisture you won't be able to see the features of the storms. For severe weather you want the mid and upper-levels of the atmosphere to be very dry. It seems to me this is the best just east of the Rockies right when storm systems move out onto the plains. They'll come out and often cause storms(our cool ones) which will tend to fill the mid and upper-levels with moisture which will spread to the east. Combine that with having a big abundance of low level moisture in the east or southeast and the storms will just be a bit more "soupy" or "grungy". There are obvious exceptions to this, but a good rule for seeing structure of storms is the further west towards the Rocky Mountains you get the better the viewing will be. If you get too close to them there often isn't even that much low-level moisture out there. The dryline, or seperation of moist and dry air, will often run up and down the middle of the plains states of ND, SD, NE, KS, OK, TX. Some systems or setups will pull the moisture west to the Rockies but often even out there it is too dry. So one reason for the crazy look to storms is where they are located. I think the best area to see storm structure is located in the middle of ND, SD, NE, KS, OK, TX. Different systems and setups will obviously dictate how that happens. This area would be a most typical spot though. Shear on a storm will also have effects on this. If there is no shear then rain falls very near or even back down where the upraft was. Supercells happen in good shear environments(which are also most often found in the middle of the plains) and will many times have their precip well seperated from the updraft tower, allowing you to see more of its structure. Another very big part of this would be the fact I chase the storms. If I were to sit here in Blair NE, in this good region, I wouldn't see very cool storms that often at all. I find the storms early in their lives(or at least try to) where they form, often very very far from home(a few states away sometimes). Storms will grow into big complexes the majority of the time. The best structure is often before that happens. I'm also with the storms for a duration of their life. If I watched one at home I'd see one point of its life. Chasing them you see them at many points while they change shapes and severity. I hope all that makes some sense. I could live in the best area for storm structure there is and not have much to show for it if I didn't actually go and chase, and chase often. Chasing Stats. This is just a spot to cover a few things I've been asked or might be asked. I've never kept real good stats. I've started to keep better track of chases and mileage the last couple years since this is my only income right now. My first chase was May 16, 1999. I saw an F3 tornado in western IA that day. I video taped storms around town from 91-98 but I wouldn't call any of that actual chasing since I never drove very far out of town for any of them. HERE is a map of the tornadoes I've seen and the dates next to them(through 06 anyway). I'm pretty "anal" about what I'll call a tornado anymore. Early on I wanted everything to be a torando. Now that I've seen enough I don't see much need in lying to myself. All the dots on there are for sure, no doubt, tornadoes. That's really not that many for having been chasing since 1999, but I'm certainly not going to complain. What isn't on that map are all the crazy supercells that I've been lucky enough to see. I've chased in Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota, North Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, and Nebraska. In 99 I only had about 5 chases. 2000 I had around 12. 2001 about 20. 2002 and 2003 were probably around 25 chases each. 2004 I think was over 30 chases. 2005 I had 38 chases, the most I've had in a year so far. 2006 should end up about the same as 2005. In 2005 I drove around 18,000 miles just chasing storms. I'm guessing 2006 will be very similar to that amount. (06 wound up closer to 22,000...07 will be very near that, maybe a bit more again) The largest hail I've seen was up to baseball on a couple occasions. I was on the Aurora NE storm in 2003 not long after it produced the world record for hail size. I would have loved to have been in it at the time. I believe that record stone was over 17 inches around. Highest wind I've been in would be very hard to say. Once it is over 70 mph it can be hard to judge. I've been in winds likely over 70 mph a whole lot of times. It actually seems easier to find tornadoes than it is to find hail larger than baseballs or winds to 90 mph or more. The closest I've been to a tornado is another hard one to judge. I'd say 1/8 mile once for sure and less than 1 mile several times. The Hanover KS tornado from April 6, 2006 was pretty much overhead with the vortex at the surface probably 1/8 mile south. The May 10, 2003 Hannibal MO tornado and May 16, 2004 Chambers ones were both pretty close as well. The largest tornado I've seen was probably the June 9, 2003 O'Neill NE tornado. It had a damage path 1/3 mile wide. Batlett NE July 12, 2004 was also a big tornado, but probably around 1/4 mile wide. I'm not a fan of F-Scale ratings in regards to what one has seen, but since I've been asked, no I've not seen an F5. I don't think anything I've seen was rated F4. A few were rated F3. Those are damage scales so they are only useful for strength if a tornado hits something. In other words an "F5" strength tornado can go through a cornfield and only be rated F0. The strongest looking tornado I've seen was probably Hill City, June 9, 2005 early on in its life. It had near violent motions in it for a bit. Hannibal looked pretty strong before it got to that city. Training/Safety. This is always an interesting topic to me. A large majority of the chase community will pound away at this, as I guess they should. If you want to chase you should learn to understand storm structure and what is going on. A great way to do that is to read chase accounts(if you can find many that have a lot of pictures, as well as a lot of words). I guess I should say that is a decent way, not a great way. I'd say I learned the most from a combination of good chase videos and from just going out and chasing. Sure you might want to learn BEFORE you go chase, but you can only get so much from reading and watching. Sooner or later you have to go and learn first hand. If you can find someone to go with, go for it. I wouldn't expect that any veteran chaser owes you that however. The way gas prices are now I'm guessing it wouldn't be that hard to track down someone willing to show you the ropes if you split gas with them. Storm Track.org is a pretty good resource to find and contact chasers. One would think chasing tornadoes and severe storms would be sooo dangerous. It really couldn't be any less true. All the driving and the other people on the road is by far the biggest danger to it. Even if you wanted to drive right into a tornado, you are going to have a hard time pulling it off(perhaps after years of chasing you'd get better at having that option available). Tornadoes are rare and aren't sticking to the highways one drives on. If you aren't trying to kill yourself you will have a hard time doing so chasing. I'll take them one by one. Hail. If you stay in your car you'll be rather safe from hail. In the worst case scenario you'll find some 6 inch diameter hail. Cover your head and stay in the car and I'm guessing you'll come out of it alive. I've chased since 1999 and have only encountered up to baseballs and I was trying to find them on those occasions. The larger they are the less of them there are going to be as well. They get more and more sporadic as they get bigger--though a very rare amount of storms can really spit out some very large stones in large numbers. The biggest hazard will be flying glass. Cover your eyes. Once you have any idea of what you are doing you can pretty much avoid all hail if you want to. Then your chances of getting cored by "killer" hail will be excessively remote. Something very bad very well could happen, but using any common sense while staying in the car I'm sure will get you out of it alive....VERY alive, lol. I wonder if anyone, anywhere, has ever been killed by hail inside a car. I doubt it. So you'll have a hard time getting seriously injured by hail if you just stay in your car...and that is if you even found that truly nasty stuff...which ain't easy, even if you are trying to. Wind. Wind is only as dangerous as you want it to be. If it gets high stop moving and pretty much any serious danger it poses goes away. It is very rare to find severe storms with winds over 100 mph. 100 mph won't even begin to roll your car over, even if it hits you on the side. Winds under 100 mph can certainly knock over a big tree and kill you in a hurry though. Don't stop near big trees. It's all very obvious stuff, which is why if you use any common sense, storm chasing is going to be a VERY safe thing. Lightning. Do yourself a big favor and just stay in the car. Sure a bolt can go through your car and still get you, but it will have a harder time doing that(rather than going around the frame) than it would if there was no car frame around you in the first place. This as a hazard can be brought to near zero by simply being smart about it and staying in your car. So, so far, lightning, wind, and hail are really minimal threats if you stay in the car and don't park by 100 foot trees. Flooding. Hmmm, I can't think of ever being in danger from flooding during all my chases. It's another thing you can be smart about and take the threat of it to near zero if you want. If you are chasing and one area is getting a crapload of rain then maybe you don't want to take that exact route back home. I'll go east for a while then north when things like this happen. Tornadoes. Just by their pure rarity you'll have a hard time finding one to hurt you. Now add to this rarity the fact they are only covering one small spot of land and the odds of you being in that are just slim. Now, if you know what you are doing, this can be an excessively minimal threat as well. Anything can happen, I will say that, but it's just a highly unlikely thing. I'm more affraid of being hit by lightning than I am a tornado. So, I guess if you just start out chasing it is entirely possible to get yourself hurt...though even then it's going to be pretty hard. If you chase for a while the hobby becomes an extremely safe one...if you want it to be. I don't think of this hobby as dangerous at all, as goofy as that might seem. A deer coming through my windshield while driving home at night scares me much more than anything from the storms.   How do I start chasing storms? This is something I get asked from time to time.  It's really a pretty straight forward concept if one thinks about it.  Just go out and chase.  Learn how to forecast, to save yourself some trouble.  Find a way to have data/internet on the road.  It's pretty much that simple.  It's the best way to learn what it is you are looking at, go and watch.  Obviously it'd be easier to go with someone that knows what they are doing and learn from them.  With gas prices and more getting into this, I'm guessing it's not all that hard to find someone to go with, if you share the gas cost with them.  I started by just going out and chasing.  I never even had the desire to go and have someone else "teach" me.  I learned a fair amount just by reading chaser accounts, watching chaser videos, and most importantly, I grew up watching storms around town long before I even knew of chasing.  The biggest thing I realized, was that most big ugly storms aren't that dangerous.  It's funny to think back about what I used to let "scare" me...storms I thought could do a lot more than they really could.  So anyway, I get asked this from time to time and it usually annoys me.  It can be as simple as just going and chasing a storm.  If you want to know where they will be, well you'll probably want to learn some forecasting stuff.