WBRZ - Baton Rouge

The average lightning bolt is five times hotter than the surface of the sun, lasting less than 200 milliseconds. Cloud to ground lightning forms when a bolt of energy ejects from the storm cloud, meeting another bolt rising from the ground. The flash occurs when those two bolts collide and return to the cloud. The August issue of National Geographic Magazine profiles Tim Samaras and his obsession with capturing the earliest images of a lightning strike and he does so with an incredibly large camera. Samaras believes that lightning and tornadoes are the final links of meteorological understanding and his 1600-pound-high-resolution, high-speed camera captures lightning photos that provide answers and save lives. Known as Kahuna, it's the highest resolution and speed-camera in the world, resting inside Samaras' mobile laboratory.