Photographing Lightning

Last night I was sitting with my family, visiting and watching tv, when I noticed lightning going on in the far mountains. I kept glancing out there every once in a while, especially when there was one extremely bright... but it wasn't until everyone decided to go to bed, that I decided to get out the camera. :) I got all my stuff together and headed outside. It was such a rush to take pictures of something so beautiful and dangerous. I was all giddy when I captured the picture above! :) The only reason I finally went to bed (at 2:20 am) was because I had run my camera battery dead. :)

Now, I'm no expert at taking pictures of lightning, but here is what I do to get the shot. :)
1. I get my tripod. There really no way to get a good picture without one.
2. I switch my lens to manual focus and I look through my eye piece to focus the lens. (Sometimes I keep looking through until I see some lightning, that way I know if it's focused.)
3. Now I switch my camera to Manual Mode so I can change the Shutter to Bulb. This allows the shutter to stay open as long as the button is held. (This is important because sometimes you need to leave it open for a while (3 to 30 seconds) to capture a strike. It would be very hard to wait until you see lightning to click the button. Be careful that you don't leave the shutter open too long though. In my case last night, the sky was still pretty bright from the city lights so 10 seconds was the most I would leave it open.)
4. Now I just aimed my camera at the "most active" lightning spot in the sky and kept taking pictures. :) I use a trigger release so I don't have to touch my camera. It plugs into the side of my Canon and has a cord down to a button. Sometimes when you keep touching your camera to push the button, you wiggle it.... but it's not necessary to have one.
5. Some final tips... If you capture lightning right after you have pressed the button, don't keep the shutter open, release it. The lightning is so bright that it will expose properly. Here is an example of a pic that the shutter was held open for 10 seconds:

You can see that the lightning was too bright so there is not much detail left. (When I took this picture, the shutter had been already open for 8 seconds before the lightning came so the clouds and sky were already getting lighter and lighter... that's why the actual lighting is too bright.) However, I still really like this picture. :)

I hope this helps you get some pictures of your own! Feel free to comment if you have other questions! :)