Butch Mazzuca, BPSA  


Monsoon Storm by Butch Mazzuca, BPSA

October 2025 - Monsoon Storm

About the Image(s)

Chasing storms and capturing lightning is a matter of being in the right place at the right time - for the last two monsoon seasons I've connected with a local realtor who’s a storm chaser and believe me, the science involved in “SAFELY” chasing storms is something to behold and to be admired. He triangulates storms by using the Phoenix and Tucson NOAA weather station and studying local and long range climate patterns, and figuring out where the next storm is building takes a high degree of skill. Since that’s beyond my ken, I travel with my friend Greg. After chasing storms from just north the Mexican border south of Tucson to NW New Mexico for two days I was exhausted, and while I got a few shots, there were nothing to write home about. So, after I returned home I was sitting in my living room watching TV the next day around sunset when I noticed a storm brewing to the north of us over the Catalina Mountains, so I set up two cameras on my tripod with a bar designed to hold two ball heads and waited - it took about 15 minutes before the storm rolled thru and I captured this shot in my slippers, with a Diet Pepsi in my hand standing on our patio - sometimes it’s good to be lucky :-)

I shoot in RAW > LrC for Denoise & Raw Details in the Details Module > Adaptive Color profile in the Basic Module > Correct for WB in the Basic Module > Expand the Tonal Range also in the Basic Module, then Texture, Clarity and Dehaze and Vibrance in the Basic Module and cropped for effect.


4 comments posted




Scott Ainsworth   Scott Ainsworth
Butch, how wonderful that the weather came to you in the end!

There must be a knack to capturing lightening that I have yet to figure out. I have tried many time-lapse exposures, and always the landscape winds up too bright and drowns out the lightening. I can capture the moon using time-lapse, but not lightening. Was your capture a time-lapse exposure, or were you also lucky with shutter timing?   Posted: 10/04/2025 17:17:55



Butch Mazzuca   Butch Mazzuca
Scott - thanks for your comments - the "knack" you speak of comes from using a lightning trigger, that I evidently forgot to include in my write up - the equipment and settings I used were a Canon R5 on a tripod with a Lightning Trigger brand, lightning trigger - they're handmade in Colorado and many believe the most reliable on the market Canon R5 - Canon 24-70 @ 24mm ISO 50 - f10 - 1/13th second. Having said that, after dark I put the lightning trigger away and use my intervalometer shooting at ISO 100 - f8 - with continuous 20 second exposures - I've included one shot captured that way (attached) and the lighting you see is 60 miles away across the border in Mexico   Posted: 10/04/2025 22:32:58
Comment Image
Scott Ainsworth   Scott Ainsworth
Butch, having never heard of a lightning trigger before, I now have serious gear envy ;-)   Posted: 10/05/2025 00:30:46
Butch Mazzuca   Butch Mazzuca
www.LightningTrigger.com - I've shot lightning in the Grand Canyon 4 times, and I'd guess 80% of the shooters used this brand trigger - best of luck :-)   Posted: 10/06/2025 14:46:43



 

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