Yesterday we passed the 100 degree mark and as evening approached a bit of relief came through in the form of a storm front. I heard the thunder in the distance, so I grabbed my camera and made a dash for the countryside. I found an excellent location that was right on the fringe of the storm,and was rain free but I have never been so afraid to get out of my truck to try and set up my tripod.Lightning was flickering on three sides of my location and was literally within a few hundred yards as it repeatedly blasted down every few seconds.I watched some amazing bolts fire off right behind the farm I was at, but it was too close to even try setting up. I decided to try and get ahead of the storm and wait somewhere else,but it kept up with me,so I ended up hand holding the camera out my window for this image.

This shot is the only image I managed to capture a bolt on despite shooting 146 frames. I saw some really great bolts here as well, but I already knew trying to capture lightning this way was going to be an exercise in frustration. There were several times I had the camera on multiple frames and saw lightning hit repeatedly in one spot,but never captured a thing. Usually I try to shoot lightning when it’s just getting slightly dark and exposures range from 10-30seconds, so you have that window of time that the shutter is open to catch a bolt. trying to watch and capture a bolt at a 250th of a second in daylight is maddening. A lightning trigger would be great but they run several hundred dollars.This bolt was among the weakest all night, but it is the only one I got.