Spring Mountains Monsoon Time Lapse 7-2-25

There was enough monsoon storm action this week for yet another July time lapse video. It would not have been wise to pass up the opportunity since severe drought has minimized the summer monsoon season in the Spring Mountains, Nevada region the last couple of years. In fact, by July 4th the weather conditions returned to clear blue skies followed by thick smokey haze, which is terrible for any kind of outdoor photography. 

This video features a Z 6II camera fitted with extremely wide angle vintage F Mount lenses. Camera #2 was a Z7II with a clinically sharp 24-120 mirrorless zoom lens. When it comes to filming time lapse, two cameras are better than one. A 5 or 6 hour session with one camera will yield a little more than 1 minute of video. Using two cameras doubles the content and yields enough material for an interesting short video. Also if one camera has an issue like being bumped out of focus or a large dust speck lands on the sensor, then all will not be lost when filming with two cameras. 

The 8 mm Sigma 180º Circular Fisheye offers a unique perspective for storm clouds, but it has no hood and the weather sealing is questionable, so it was only used until the first raindrops fell. After that brief session I switched to a 16mm Nikon Diagonal Fisheye, which has a tiny protective hood and superb lens coatings that could withstand a little bit of rain. 

Unfortunately while changing lenses the winds kicked up and one tiny piece of micro fiber landed on the camera sensor. This created a small worm shape in the ensuing videos, which was nearly impossible to mask and dust removal tools failed to work. A couple of the 16mm lens clips had to be tossed out. The remainder were tolerable enough to publish. 

The 24-120 lens stayed on the Z7II camera all day and it survived several downpours of rain. Because the front element is recessed and it has a fair size hood, not one rain drop touched the front lens. At the same time the 16mm lens on camera #1 definitely captured a few raindrops because of the nature of fisheye glass. It is interesting to watch rain drops on the lens evaporate in a matter of seconds in those wet weather time lapse clips. 

Both cameras were set to an 8 second interval in aperture priority mode at ƒ/11 and ISO 100. Each session was timed for about 1 hour or until the cameras had to be stowed temporarily because of a downpour. 

Instead of processing 16:9 aspect ratio videos inside the camera, the full frame 4K videos were processed with video software. Showing the entire frame definitely is best for showcasing the mesmerizing distorted effect that vintage fisheye lenses produce.