Close Encounters of the Cloud Kind.

[Paul]

The other night, the Hawley Area got his with a massive thunderstorm dropping up to 1" hail stones. I took these in my back yard on a tripod in manual focus and manual mode.

The clouds are called a TOWERING CUMULUS. They are very frightning looking in the daytime. It provided an amazing lightning show for about 90 minutes. Here are 3 shots. Pardon the blurry ness but I found it hard to focus in the dark with nothing to focus on. Most were multi second expousures:

Canon XTI 17-85 IS USM, Bogen Tripod, ISO 1600, 24mm at f4

ISO 1600, F4, 0.7 sec exposure time, manual mode, 17mm

iso 800, f5.6, 1.0 sec exposure, 70mm

[Steve Foss]

Neat shots, Paul. Man, someone was sure getting smacked by that storm!

[Dbl]

Natures finest fireworks display.