Tips For Weather Photography To Shoot Dramatic Landscape Photos

Taking weather photos is a great experience, however, you need to catch must-known tips for weather photography before doing that. It requires your skill, knowledge, luck, and determination to not only have a perfect pic but also safe for you. Especially, if you want to capture disaster moments like storms, hurricanes, tornados, etc, you need to prepare carefully. Today, the article will disclose some good tips to help you get nice weather pics but still safe.

Must-known tips for weather photography

Must-known tips for weather photography: Preparation

Weather photography, while highly worthy, can be quite frustrating if you have not primed yourself for what you may encounter. Therefore, preparation is the key.

Research the area where you want to take a photo

One of the first must-known tips for weather photography you need to remember is to research the area where you want to take a photo. The reason is that for example, when you keep up with a storm, you go far away from your safe accommodation, this thing can place you in some dangerous situations like losing. 

This will be fine if you know the area like the back of your hand, both residents and geographic. However, in case you decide you want to take a short trip the last two weeks off in May and stay here to the High Plains and chase storms for a good time, some maps on hand will be better for you.

Research the area where you want to take a photo

Moreover, do not depend on your cell phone too much. In recent years, it can be denied the massive development of cellular coverage, network connection, however, the best advice for you is not to rely on your cell phone to guide you. The reason is that there are still some places in a country like mountainous, remote rural areas where one carrier may not still provide yet. 

Cell phones can get no service situation

On top of that, connection loss may be an often situation you meet because you are in the middle of chaser convergence. In fact, there are a lot of reports that several times this year, many people chasing storm areas made cell service unavailable.

Preparing suitable and enough clothes

One of the tips for taking great weather photos is to prepare suitable and enough clothes. When chasing weather phenomena to take weather photos, depending on the kind of weather, you should prepare clothes carefully for your trip. 

Prepare right clothes for your trip

Even the weather is burning outside, it will be better for you to bring a hoodie or light jacket in provision. Because in some places, the weather can change differently in a day with a hot day and a cold night. 

For example, the typical day during storm season will begin warm. In the morning, the weather will be pleasant with a few clouds in the sky and slight sunshine however, this situation does not last long. As the afternoon wears on and a severe thunderstorm is forming from those blown-up clouds, then the temperature will drop. 

Clothes do not only have the use of covering your body, making you warm but also protect you from other things like mosquitos or insects.

Watch out for some danger from outside

To take perfect weather photos means that you have to stay outside, wait for a long time to catch marvelous moments. Therefore, you should watch out for some danger. It could be a snake, lightning, or others.

Watch out for some danger from outside

Although thunderstorms can occur at any time of year, storm season often takes place in springtime when the warm sunshine spreads up the landscape. At that time, snakes can be seen easily and they are somewhat cranky after a winter of little to no food. 

Therefore, in the list of must-know tips for weather photography, you should pay attention to this issue. It will be better for you to prepare some snake-repellent devices as well far away from the bushes. 

Checking the weather forecast

Why you should check the weather forecast? It will be useful information for keen landscape photographers to know how’s the weather now, next 24 hour weather forecast or weather 10 day forecast. Weather forecast from satellite will predict the possibility of rain, humidity, or other weather conditions. 

When the rain passes, there is always the possibility of great light. Knowing this new increases your opportunity for great weather photos. Best weather for photography will be a great chance to get amazing weather shooting. 

Furthermore, if you want to catch sublime pictures of fog and mist, weather forecast and humidity are essential for you. Temperatures and humidity are good clues for you to predict morning fog forming. When the dew point is above the air temperature and the humidity is high then water vapor can condense and give fog patches.

Check weather forecast before shooting weather photos

Must-known tips for weather photography: Camera operation

Of course, tips for weather photography can not lack tips for camera operation which is the main key to take photos.

Be flexible in setting 

A popular situation is fixed camera settings, not flexible. This behavior is not good at all. 

For example, the first time of shoot weather, my camera always set the ISO at 100 to take landscape photography. Because just enjoying this field recently, I felt no confidence to process the noise. Therefore, I would not budge until I lost and ignored some good storm images due to my slow shutter speed.

Be flexible camera setting 

The speed of the storm can change dramatically and suddenly, vary from being at a standstill to rushing over like a monster. During the daytime, I will shoot in aperture priority and I will observe my shutter speed to check whether it is a suitable speed to catch storms or not. If not, then I will adjust the ISO in order to the shutter speed will increase.

Once the light starts going away, then it is time to move over to manual or bulb mode.

All in all, let’s be flexible camera setting. Selecting which mode you shoot for weather is not really important, as long as you have the proper settings for your scene.

Lens choice

Lens choice is also important and worthy in the list of must-know tips for weather photography. Your choice in the glass really depends on your feeling and personal preference as long as it fits the scene. 

In general, if you take a storm image, a large panorama can be good if it is done at 70mm. However, in reality, the distance can change significantly to be suitable for your purpose. For example, the first scene which you take at 70mm, was a composition where a subject is off in the distance and the clouds are even further away. After that, later that day, you may shoot a storm at 14mm because it becomes so large and close to your position.

Lens choice is also an important tip for weather photography

Last, the advice here is that you do need to keep in mind that if the storm is popping lightning, you will want to back off. Even though those incredible wide-angle supercell images look absolutely awesome, safety is always the first important thing.

Fill the frame

When you take weather photography, you need to take notice of the object in the image. Your eyes can concentrate on small details, they are a little bit similar to a zoom lens. The camera can not do this without using a real zoom lens so that is the reason why so many people see their subject quite small in the final frame and feel a bit disappointed.

Your eyes can concentrate on small details

Moreover, all images have some sort of ‘subject’ which is the first purpose you taking the photo. The subject can be a person’s face, a marvelous view, or an impressive weather pattern. When you look through the camera’s viewfinder, let’s ask yourself “Is your subject you choose great and big enough in the frame?” Changing some angles, moving your position, or using the camera’s zoom can bring you a nice image making you surprised. 

Changing some angles or using the camera’s zoom to get better photos

Other tips for weather photography

Another tip for weather photography is choosing a landscape suitable for the weather. In detail, opening a weather forecast app to check if tomorrow would be a cloudy or rainy day, It will be great for images of colorful sunrise and sunset skies, but that weather condition could work well for certain types of subjects. 

For example, on overcast days, dark clouds cover completely the sky, no light can penetrate, taking weather photography near waterfalls, streams, and forest will be a good idea for you.

Choosing a landscape suitable for the weather

In other cases, taking images in bad weather conditions can create a strange impressive highlight. A little bit of a drizzle can boost scene quality, which darkens bright rocks and saturate colorful foliage. However, you need to remember to use a polarizer to remove glare from wet surfaces and bring out the best colors.

In weather photography, certain intimate subjects can work best in flat light as well as do some wildlife subjects.  For this image of Skógafoss, a waterfall in Iceland, the gloomy light was perfect for capturing the falls and the bright green foliage. The dark storm clouds above—the next wave of rain coming in—enhance the mood and help to frame the waterfall and interesting rock formation on the left.

Certain intimate subjects can work best in flat light 

Conclusion

It can sound strange but the best weather photos are often taken when bad weather suddenly breaks. Therefore, on bad weather day, don’t be sad or disappointed. Let’s take advantage of these weather conditions to take marvelous images, don’t miss a great opportunity. Above are the must-known tips for weather photography which helps you safe and possible to catch fabulous weather moments.