Stormscapes2 is a beautifully orchestrated timelapse video of storms, thunderbolts and starry skies

We've seen a good many timelapse videos in the past, many of them which were truly outstanding as they made use of some clever techniques, or simply because they were showing extraordinarily beautiful imagery. We've also seen a couple of prime example of night sky and storm photography. The latest video that we stumbled upon effectively combines storm chasing, starry skies and timelapse photography and merges them into a truly stunning little film.

Called Stormscapes2, the video was made by Nicolaus Wegner of LightAlive Photography together with his wife, Daow. The individual scenes of Stormscapes2 -- which, as you can guess by its name, is Wegner's second film of this kind -- were captured over a time span of five months at locations in Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Colorado. They show a variety of weather phenomena ranging from thick clouds to lightning storms and even some tornados -- both during the day and at night.

Wegner has lots of experience in storm photography, which becomes evident not only from the beautiful imagery he used for Stormscapes2, but also from the storm photos he shows on his website. While some of the images are clearly identifiable as landscapes, others look like their were taken underwater, and yet others look so unreal that one is inclided to take them for CGI renderings.

Stormscapes2 doesn't fascinate by its images alone, however. In addition to his stunning timelapse storm recordings, Wegner gave the video a truly fitting score that makes use of both orchestral and electronic elements, with both energy-packed and calm passages, to which the images are masterfully orchestrated. The result is a truly mesmerizing video that show both the beautiful and the frightening side of weather phenomena.

Everything you see in Stormscapes2 was recorded with Canon gear, including a 5D Mk II and a 6D body as well as a range of lenses such as a 14mm Rokinon ultrawide-angle and the 70-200mm f/4L telephoto zoom. All the editing was done in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom and Adobe After Effects, and we can't even begin to imagine how long it took until the final video was finished.

If you'd like to see more of Nicolaus Wegner's work, you can find his still photography on his website, while his videos can be found on Vimeo.

(via DIY Photography)