Today ended up being a longer day than anticipated as I wasn't really expecting much.

Most of SE Qld's storms tend to move NE, but today they moved mainly SE or southerly. With the first line of storms appearing around Esk and heading for Marburg I took off towards the new Centenary Mwy - Cunningham Hwy connection Rd where the front of a weak storm was visible.

Lightning was reasonably frequent but as light rain started to fall I retreated back towards Greenbank, though the storm died before it got there. Some weak mammatus was visible.

I sat and waited, wondering what to do when a couple of handy radar updates from Drew and Michelle (thanks kids!) revealed that a new system was coming through from around the same place, so I headed back to Springfield Lakes and found a nifty spot with a reasonably decent view. Regular lightning bolts dropped out the front and with my camera shooting in burst mode, I even managed to catch a couple.

Shooting this way with this much ambient light however, does chew through a memory card pretty quick. I was desperate though, so I continued. To give you an idea, the shutter fired 3133 times today and I'm showing 25 shots! This is a new camera which I've owned for less than two weeks and it's already fired over 5000 shots.

Here's a handy tip for those who fire off endless shots in burst mode (as described above) and are sick of spending half their time deleting photos. If your camera has a PROTECT option for photos, then simply protect the shots you want to keep. Then after shooting hundreds of dud photos, just delete all images on the card and the PROTECTED photos should remain safely on the card without being deleted - maybe experiment with this first eh, before you delete that million dollar lightning photo and sue the pants off me. Anyway, I can't believe I only just thought of this recently. I wish someone had told me.

As darkness fell, taking photos became much more enjoyable (and less shots-per-second-intensive for the camera). From my position and without radar access it seemed there was another line roughly from where I was in Springfield Lakes up to the north or NW, as lightning was visible in that direction.

As the lightning activity shifted from my NW to my N, I moved from my little shelter onto a bit of kid's playground equipment for a better view.

Unfortunately, the rain was relentless, and good clear forks of lightning were very rare. As the lightning activity seemed to shift east, and after squatting in this shelter designed for less vertically liberalised people, I headed back towards home. Halfway there, I thought Cleveland would be good spot if the storm was heading out to sea. Instead of moving off-shore, activity seemed to just sit inland, continually feeding itself without actually moving anywhere. At least I was able to get a reasonable light show out here with an unobstructed view.

For the last hour or so, the storm taunted me, constantly appearing to die then firing off a whopper as soon as my camera was in it's bag. Then, eight hours after taking off from home, lightning became so infrequent that I decided to leave, although a few good flashes were visible on my way home. Even after arriving home in Springwood, rumbles continued, but never fired up enough for me to head back out again.