{"id":3136,"date":"2010-03-07T08:14:20","date_gmt":"2010-03-06T22:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=3136"},"modified":"2010-03-08T13:18:19","modified_gmt":"2010-03-08T03:18:19","slug":"panasonic-gh-1-at-melbournes-moomba-festival-hit-by-a-once-in-10-years-super-cell-hailstorm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=3136","title":{"rendered":"Panasonic GH-1 at Melbourne’s Moomba Festival hit by a once in 10 years super-cell hailstorm"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a nice warm, albeit humid March day in Melbourne yesterday, so I decided to pack my Panasonic GH-1 , Leica-D 25mm f\/1.4 and Olympus OM 135mm f\/2.8 lens and catch the train into the city to enjoy Melbourne’s annual Moomba Festival – a nice multicultural family event – Moomba is Australia’s largest free community festival and one of the longest running festivals in Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There was no evidence of storms on the horizon, not on radars.<\/p>\n

After a bite to eat\u00a0 in our great little laneway cafe’s, I headed down to the festival region along the banks of the Yarra river.<\/p>\n

I decided to try out my OM 135mm lens wide open at f\/2.8 and stood some 30-40m from this African musician – I think his name is Jali Buba Kuyateh from the online programme (I did crop this image by removing about a third):<\/p>\n

\"OM<\/p>\n

and at the BMX bike stunt competition, I used the Leica-D 25mm f\/1.4 lens at f\/1.4 with the lens pre-focused so I could get nicely sharp shots with relatively shallow depth of field of this lad doing a jump on his bike (again about 1\/3rd cropped out):<\/p>\n

\"bike<\/p>\n

Then, with little warning, all hell broke loose, with sudden onset of golf-ball sized hailstones and cyclonic wind and rain which dumped 33mm in 30min causing flash flooding and cancellation of the festival for the day – this was the most dynamic super-cell thunderstorm to hit Melbourne’s CBD in 7 years – it dumped 66mm in 30min on nearby Flemington Racecourse where the Melbourne Cup is held.<\/p>\n

Check out this short 720p HD video I posted to YouTube at the peak of the storm<\/a><\/strong> using the Leica D lens from the “safety” of a crowded, small gazebo – not protection at all for the lightning strikes, but we were lucky in that regard and had no other choice for better shelter.<\/p>\n

This is freakin’ awesome man!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"freakin<\/p>\n

And that Panasonic Leica-D 25mm f\/1.4 lens was freakin’ awesome too!
\n
\nSee more of my photos from the event here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

See photos from other people hosted on The Age here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Will I dare go back again today given that similar storms are forecast again for today?<\/p>\n

ps.. my website was down for several hours after this event as the storm knocked out power to my internet provider’s data centre – apologies for that!<\/p>\n

Now when will Olympus or Panasonic introduce a weather-proofed Micro Four Thirds camera and lens?<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a nice warm, albeit humid March day in Melbourne yesterday, so I decided to pack my Panasonic GH-1 , Leica-D 25mm f\/1.4 and Olympus OM 135mm f\/2.8 lens and catch the train into the city to enjoy Melbourne’s annual Moomba Festival – a nice multicultural family event – Moomba is Australia’s largest free […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[18,494,42,123],"class_list":["post-3136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photographic-subjects-and-places","tag-four-thirds-micro","tag-melbourne","tag-om-lens","tag-panasonic-gh1"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t