The Z 9 / Z24-70f2.8 never left the tripod and in fact, wasn’t off the entire time except for a few seconds while I was at Monument Valley last week. It was doing just one thing, making time-lapse of the view from our balcony 24/7. The Z 9 ran for five days busily taking 1 photo every ten seconds using my basic settings for Time Lapse at ISO1600, f2.8, Aperture Priority. The Z 9 is plugged into the AC via the EP-6a adapter. Other than stopping the Time Lapse every so often to “save” a few hours at a time and to wipe the rain off the front filter, the Z 9 just kept running capturing time passing in a timeless landscape.

I had arranged with Helen at Three Sisters months ago where I wanted to be this morning to greet the sun. At 05:45 she had us jostling down the road in pursuit of that sweet click, a photo I’ve long desired. We had left earlier than most as she had two stops she wanted us to make first. This is one of them. As a Navajo and resident, Helen had the knowledge and permission to have us at the right place at the right time. And photos like this come from that kinda planned luck. To get the shot, I merely had to stand up in the truck, dial in -1 exp comp, Aperture Priority, AWB, f4 @80mm, and go click. The sky from top to bottom is a gorgeous rainbow transitioning from night to day, the Monument Valley dust bringing warmth to the horizon. This doesn’t happen every morning, but it certainly did today, the magical rainbow.

Seriously, staying at The View, the hardest part of this photo was remembering to set the alarm! I had the camera already set up for the morning when I went to bed. WB 10K, -2/3, aperture closed down to f/32 was all it took. The alarm went off, I started to shoot with the Z 8 / Z24-120 bigger scenes watching the sun which I knew would be right over the “thumb.” Then when it was time, zoomed out to 400mm on the other rig, went click, and then sat in my chair and had my coffee. All I can say, all I wanted to say in my photo was, whata rock!

We knew it was comin, it scrubbed my air-to-air photo mission so the camera was set up and waiting. The skies grew dark and the show began before sunset with a huge clamp of thunder. For half an hour the Miops was clicking away as it was pointed east for the incoming show. The camera was set to Aperture Priority, ISO 100, f2.8 -1/3 comp doing all the heavy lifting as I watched through the windows. The camera wasn’t set up at 02:04 when it kicked up again for an hour. The show is supposed to start again today around 13:00, sure can tell it’s August, it’s time to light ‘er up!

This storm screamed, screamed through the Bitterroots! We heard the thunder off in the distance so I checked the lightning app. I saw the bolts were over in ID. There was a forecast for dry thunderstorms so we were paying attention as it’s wildfire season. No sooner than we did all of this and the lightning was on our front porch. I admit, at first I wasn’t thinking about putting the camera out but then my guilt took over and I set up the Z 8 / Z24-120 with the Miops pointing west. It took 7 shots and then stopped. That’s because the storm was already east! I set up the camera pointing east and it took another dozen or so photos and then the storm was north of Missoula. It did rain, poured in fact, for about nine minutes and then it stopped (glad it wasn’t a dry storm) dropping .09 of an inch. I dried off the gear and called it a night. This morning I went through the 21 images and #6 is what you see above. This is not a great lightning shot by any stretch but it sure is cool to see how the lightning danced from cloud to cloud. My vivid imagination sees two battling each other, the one on the right throwing all it can at the left. The left giving it all in one bolt. Would never have seen this with my eyes but glad I put the camera out. Mother Nature, simply amazing!