First time shooting long exposures of lightning

I come from a place where it storms for maybe five minutes throughout the entire year. Where storms are one crack of thunder and then it's done. To try to capture an active storm would require very specific conditions and heading to more stormy areas of the country. But here in Armenia, there's basically an entire season of storms. For the past few weeks it has been the strongest winds I've ever experienced, followed by the loudest cracks of thunder and the most aggressive type of lightning. It's incredibly fun, and it only just dawned upon me that I could attempt to capture these storms. So, I set up the Sony A6000 with the 35mm F1.8 lens, throwing it up on the gimbal, locking its axis points and then dialing in a few settings. It took a bit of practice to get the focus of near infinity down right on manual, as well as getting the right shutter speed and aperture.

Most of these were captured at around 15 seconds of exposure, with an aperture of about F11 at 100 ISO. There's a fair amount of light pollution in the area, so trying to get a mixture of the buildings nearby and the lightning was a bit difficult. Though I think the most difficult aspect was putting the gimbal on the balcony and keeping a hand around it just to be sure that no gusts of wind decided to send all my gear down a one-way trip to paradise. Most of the exposures came out with nothing interesting, much of the storm has been quick flashes of light in the distance, no major branches of lightning across the sky like the other nights. The slight bit of rain which ended up being a good thing for me given my gimbal and camera were actually just outside. Many images were a little shaky until I realised that I could set a delay on the shutter to account for the press shake I would introduce into the image, and from there things went quite smoothly.

It was really fun getting the perfect shot, when the lightning would finally strike or illuminate the entire sky. These were more rare moments but the whole experience made me realise I'd love to do more of these in the future. Especially with some more preparation: a wider focal length to get more of the sky in frame, a more modern camera with better ISO capabilities as well as an ability to connect it to my phone so I could just press the shutter from there rather than manually pressing it. An actual tripod would also be good so I don't have to place my gimbal on the balcony ledge and hold it and hope for the best for both me and the gear under an electrical storm.

What would also be really fun for the future is going to specific scenic locations with the intent of capturing storms. Incorporating vast landscapes into the compositions. But hey, I guess we have to start somewhere, right?