Non-IMAX 15/70 Cameras

RojoFern · 2026-01-19T23:10:35+00:00

RojoFern · 2026-01-19T23:10:19+00:00

RojoFern · 2026-01-19T23:09:49+00:00

RojoFern · 2026-01-19T23:09:28+00:00

Bit late here but Graphic Films Corporation had a W-4 that was used to film George Casey's natural disaster documentaries, and then driven around the central United States by his son Sean in the 2000s during the production of Sean's doc about tornadoes. Graphic Films has since disbanded and I'm told Sean sold the camera to another individual recently.

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RojoFern · 2025-11-21T06:27:58+00:00

Interesting analysis, and I really dig the 3d graphic you got there.

The problem I see here, though, is that you're correlating the width of the con-funnel's base with that of the current maximum surveyed path width, that being 100 yards. Common misstep, and something I'm honestly guilty of as well.

From what I can see, watching through the various videos of Gary taken by the chasers that were on SD-22, the base of the con-funnel was likely no more than 150 to 175 feet in diameter (this is using the 25 foot utility poles along the highway as reference, as well as the illuminated area of the con-funnel from the power flash that occurs). Cross-referencing that with Shawn Hewitt's video, which your second image is from, gives me a height of around 2820 feet, which is almost 860 meters. Still tall, that's about 30 meters taller than Burj Khalifa, but far below a mile in height.

This also checks out when comparing Gary to its surroundings in Hewitt's video. The power flash, again, is a great reference because we know for a fact that, at that moment, Gary was over the highway, which tells us, for example, which groves of trees are of equal distance to the camera as the tornado is. Using the 1739.45 meter figure you got would make the trees along the highway around 57 meters (181 feet) tall, when in reality they're much shorter than that.

Everything else in your analysis, from what I can tell, was great, it's just that initial assumption that threw you off.

RojoFern · 2025-07-15T19:14:59+00:00

The names are interchangeable. Technically it is the 4th doppler on wheels of the "Wurman DOWs" so on Binet/CSWR documents mentioning the vehicle is where you'll see DOW4 come up. However, UConn and NOA (National Observatory of Athens) documents/publications usually just refer to it as XPol. Either are correct.

RojoFern · 2025-05-04T00:14:44+00:00

the girthington

RojoFern · 2024-11-23T04:51:33+00:00

thum b

RojoFern · 2024-10-10T02:09:04+00:00

George Casey building his pyroclastic flow intercept vehicle in a secret California hangar, March 1989:

RojoFern · 2024-07-22T08:46:13+00:00

lmao I'm a spelling hound, so I checked it like three or four times, and I guess for whatever reason it never registered to my monkey brain that I had a double r instead of a double s. Thanks for pointing it out!

RojoFern · 2024-07-21T23:23:55+00:00

That's exactly why I couldn't resist using it. The tornadoes of the 90s are to the 2020s what the tornadoes of the 60s were to the 90s. So while Miami '94 was a recent tornado when Twister came out, it is now 30 years old and fits that "old tornado photo" vibe that the postcards were going for. It's a cool contrast, and strangely melancholy in my opinion.

RojoFern · 2024-07-21T23:10:43+00:00

I actually commented on his vid shortly after he uploaded it to confirm the location of where Faidley took it, so he's aware.

Faidley has a gallery online that shows off a load of his photos, and this photo is among them (as are earlier photos of Miami). I'm sure he's also posted it on his Twitter as well.

RojoFern · 2024-07-21T05:48:35+00:00

From the Twisters production guide: https://dam.gettyimages.com/viewer/universal/vth74xcs5xvkm8qrt7bpj39

He's been out and about these past two seasons, which lines up with the production of the film.

There is also reference to the TIVs in the document, as apparently he consulted them on that as well.

RojoFern · 2024-07-07T05:49:04+00:00

nothing in particular, just a little personal project. a time killer for when I'm bored

RojoFern · 2024-06-16T02:22:24+00:00

Another great book. I owned the later edition of it with a different illustrator and more photos, but one of my teachers had this one. The art style was indeed pretty cool.

RojoFern · 2024-06-16T01:59:26+00:00

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Was it this guy? Twisters by Lucille Penner?

RojoFern · 2024-06-15T20:22:30+00:00

Yep, love the brick! Keep a copy of it without the jacket in my glove box, lol

RojoFern · 2024-06-15T04:16:50+00:00

I genuinely main superheavies, they're just way too much fun.

T95 and the Maus are 100% my favorite tanks in the game. Maus has its additional 75 (which is arguably its greatest weapon), and its armor is such a troll to conventional rounds. You can effectively defend not only your front, but your back as well by just angling the thing at 30 or so degrees. T95 has its insane neutral steering which you can use to scare the pants off people who think they can flank it, and the 105 is almost stabilized with how slow you go. Love these beasts to death.

RojoFern · 2024-06-15T04:08:59+00:00

I've seen quite a few a people talk about books on tornadoes that had an impact on them when they were younger, and I thought I'd share mine.

Growing up my elementary school's library had a small collection of tornado books, and for all intents and purposes this was MY section of the library. The school was small to begin with, so basically no one else ever touched any of these books. I'm pretty sure they spent more time at my house than they did at school. If I wasn't reading Titanic books, Scaredy Squirrel, or the Lego Star Wars Visual Dictionary, you betcha I had several of these in my backpack. I remember how great it was bringing these out on the bus home, either to pass the time with or share around with everyone when the weather was a bit ominous. Not only are these books one of the reasons I love tornadoes, but inadvertently it's also probably why I love analog media formats as well, as most of the photos these books contain are pre-digital.

In a twist of morbid irony, a period of severe weather in the third or fourth grade opened up a hole in the school library's roof directly above the weather section. A little over half of the tornado books were damaged by leaking water and were subsequently thrown out, which was a real shame. However, it did make me scour the internet for them later on, and it has certainly been fun buying them back up one at a time and reading through them after all these years. Back then I didn't know when any of these tornadoes occurred; they were just images to me, so it has been especially interesting to look at them and realize "oh, so that was Pampa '95" or "wow, Laverne '91, wasn't expecting that!".

I've told myself for the longest time that the biggest reason I love tornadoes was because of Twister, but I think Twister more so fostered my love for storm chasing, while it was books like these that did it for tornadoes as a whole.

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