Thunderstorms are associated with convective clouds and are often accompanied by precipitation which may reach the ground. The definition of a thunderstorm is when one or more sudden electrical discharges take place, manifested by a flash of light (lightning) and a sharp or rumbling sound (thunder).

Nighttime photography of electrical discharges poses little problem. Search a dark environment, then put the cams bulb mode on and just wait till not too far away lightning shows up in the viewer. Besides the rather faint intra-cloud lightning, rate of success is very good with all other types of lightning.

For the photographer, daylight lightning remains a real challenge. There is too much light to obtain long shutter speeds, thus the chance to capture an electrical discharge is pretty low. However with the digital era, one might consider taking photographs by try and error: just switch the remote control in continuous mode and just wait what comes out.

This picture was taken some 3 hours before the sunset. With smallest aperture (in this case f/22), shutter speed came out around 1,5 seconds. But even with a rather active thunderstorm, rate of success remains pretty low. With some luck an average of 3 out 100 frames have a strong enough lightning on the sensor and, like in this case, they usually belong to the cloud-to-ground strikes.