Tempest. I took this image on the way out of the Valley of Fire state park in Nevada. We were being evacuated from the park due to flooding.
I was leading a workshop with my friend Bob Fletcher. He was heading the convoy of 15+ cars (around 30 photographers) and I was bringing up the rear. I spotted this moment developing and yelled into the radio for Bob to stop. Everyone piled out of their cars, grabbed gear and started shooting. I was one of the first to start shooting and, I believe, the only one to capture this moment. Others got some great shots too ...
Equipment:
Sony A7Riii
Tamron 15-30 f/2.8VC lens with a Sigma MC-11 EF to E mount adaptor
Benro Mach3 9CX Series 1 Long tripod
Dennis DLOW55 ballhead
Really Right Stuff L-Bracket
Settings:
15mm, ISO 100, f/8, 1/320
In the interest of speed I set the camera into bracket mode (9 shots at 1 stop intervals), took a guess at the mid-point exposure, let the camera autofocus and prayed! I finally selected the 2nd image of the set in order to keep the highlights from blowing out. The moment, itself, lasted only around 3 seconds and was gone by the time I took my second set of bracketed images.
I processed the RAW file in Lightroom and adjusted exposure settings to open up the shadows and control the highlights. I cleaned up the horizon in Photoshop to remove some artifacts.