Lightning is a fascinating Nature Show. It can also be extremely dangerous.
Many years ago, in the film(!) era, I witnessed a spectacular thunderstorm arriving on the southern coast of Norway. Despite the pelting rain I went out on a small hill to get a perfect vantage point for my F2T with 25-50 Nikkor, and fired away. What I didn't notice as I was occupied looking into the finder was the storm front split up and one section made landfall outside my main viewing angle. All of a sudden the lightning bolt struck and splintered the pine tree (left side of photo) just 2-3 m away. This was such a momentary overload of my senses that I simply went blind and deaf. I slithered prone on the ground towards the summer cabin and left the camera on its tripod. All efforts were directed towards getting out of the danger zone. My eyesight returned during the next day, but I was deaf on one ear for months and still these many years later haven't fully recovered normal hearing.
I dried out the camera and the lens, and removed the film which still was dry. Afterwards it turned out that the blast of light had been so intense as to overexpose the film inside the camera to make it just a clear backing, except for the first 2-3 frames (I had shot about 35 frames at the time the lightning struck). So here it is.
Of course I paid for my carelessness in standing on the highest point ... thus no more shooting of lightning unless I'm indoors. A lesson to be remembered.
