Another Phoenix Haboob – July 18th, 2011

Another big dust storm/haboob just nailed downtown Phoenix. Nothing as epic as the first one, but it was still pretty cool.

I caught it on timelapse again from the same parking garage. I had wanted to bolt further south, but I had run out of time with rush hour traffic, so I just went to the quickest vantage point and turned the camera on. There was a little dust storm first, then the second, larger one rolls in towards the end.

A few things of note for this one.

1. I killed my last remote timer control, so I purchased a Satechi TR-A Timer Remote Control Shutter for Canon and it was HANDS DOWN better than the junk I had before. Never buy the cheap, sub $20 version. Ugh. The connector for the 5D Mark II was just awful.

2. I hang around until the dust hits this time! Got so much crap last time…of course, the dust was pretty thin, and I knew this *grin*

3. I so badly wanted to pan right, but I held my ground.

4. This was an all-manual timelapse this go-round. The harsh light and shadows made this pretty tough to do that way, think I may have been better off in a total auto mode for something like this, but I think it turned out okay.

I love the cars at rush hour just flooding the freeway. You can’t see it, but a plane flies from right to left and almost disappears inside the wall of dust. I saw one wing rise up kind of fast for a second, must have been a fun ride!

Enjoy!