Electric storm of September 8, 1999, San Francisco Bay Area

As seen from my apartment on Shell Blvd, Foster City, CA. On this particular day it was literally raining lightning (later learned that there were more than a 1000 lightning strikes that day and the San Francisco bay area hadn't witnessed such a show for the past 15 years). All this visible from my bedroom window! It was almost a perfect setup to take lightning pictures, except that the house lights across the street made it difficult to use my camera in bulb mode. As if reading my mind, the power failed and I had the perfect setup. Put my camera on tripod, set focus to infinity and a 30 sec bulb exposure was enough to capture multiple lightning strikes. I don't remember the aperture, but I think I set it using the Sunny 16/Moony 11 rule.

Here is another photo of the same event from my collection.

Here are some professional photos taken by Geologist/Photographer Cleet Carlton.