Hmm. What F number did you use ?

Rains are hard to catch lol. I believe it would be much easier if you just take pictures of when the rain drops hit water or on the ground depends on how large the rain drops are of course.
I usually just try to get some reflections when it's raining ^^

I got a couple pictures of rain falling yesterday, none of them any good looking but you could see long lines, it looked like dry pasta.

hmm if you want to capture rain in the air then you would need a lot faster shutter speed and with background lighting to illuminate the falling rain drops, I think lol

Yea, I had it on 1/2500 shutter speed looking up at the sky. When I took it at 1/4000 you could see all the little water drops from the rain but if you didn't know it was rain you would have thought it was dust on my lens.

Try use a flash? But it will surely make the background dark if you got short shutter speed.

No the brightness wasn't the problem, all you could see were lines when I used 1/2500 and 1/4000 completely froze each little drop of water but they are so small all you can see are little specks everywhere.

Use a telezoom or get closer ?
I tried to catch snowflakes in the winter. But It was like you describe.

I tried to focus as close as I could to then lens but then the rain stopped, it kept stopping and starting so I gave up before I managed to get one focused close enough.

Ah. It is like when you try to catch a thunderstorm. It is damn hard!
Can someone give me a guide? (Chantal I have seen some of your thunder photos).