Wood Storks in the Rain

I’m usually not out taking photos when it rains but may have to start doing it more often.  Was taking wood stork photos at Brazoria NWR when I got a text alert from one of my weather apps that it was going to rain.  Looked to my right and saw the rain coming.  Reached for my lens raincoat and it started pouring.  Through the raincoat on the seat and stuck my 500mm out the window to start shooting the storks in the rain.

Wasn’t sure what shutter speed would be optimal to emphasize the rain so pretty much tried them all from 1/60 to 1/1250 sec.  Having a clean background would have helped to see the rain but didn’t have that luxury. 

The gully washer lasted about 8 minutes.  Hoped that they would flap their wings to dry them off when it stopped but they just stood there.  Turned around to drive away and found a much better target standing in the road…

1/250 sec @ F8, ISO 400, evaluative metering, +1 exposure compensation, 700mm, hand held out my car window