I eagerly awaited the first thunderstorm of this summer....and it finally arrived!

I decided to position myself on an open area facing the oncoming storm, making use of the tree line on the horizon to create some depth and the sand road to lead the viewer's eyes to the storm.

One of the first things that need to be in place for a landscape photo is stability. For this image I used a tripod.

Because it was a landscape image I used my wide angle Nikkor 24-70mm f2.8 lens. I changed the ISO to 1600 and set the depth of field to f22 to make sure everything was in focus.

When and where lightning will strike is of course unpredictable, and to be able to capture lightning it is very important to have the camera's shutter open for long enough. I did this by changing the camera to the 'bulb' setting, which allowed me to keep the shutter open for as long as I wished, 64 seconds in this instance.

I managed to get a few images that captured the lightning, with this one being the most impressive.

When the first few drops started falling I packed up and made it home just in time before the heavens opened.

Be sharp out there

Wim Vorster.

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