exposure, ignition

That is lightning glowing in the clouds of a decent sized thunderstorm a few miles to the north of my neighborhood.  I had been doing my evening walk, watching the bats flying overhead, when I noticed the storm.  I ducked inside the house and grabbed my new camera just to see how it would work under low light.  Not too bad, I think.  This was shot hand-held at iso 200, f 2.0 at 1/3 of a second.  The trees and street lights in the foreground are not sharp, which is to be expected at f 2.0, but the detail in the clouds is excellent.  I am liking this camera more and more.

Before my walk I spent about an hour commissioning the new Honda 2.3 hp four-stroke.  It came from the factory with oil in the lower unit.  I had to add oil to the power head and also buy some regular gas - all my gas was for the old two-stroke with two-stroke oil mixed in.  I now have two-stroke gas, plus several small bottles of two-stroke oil, that I need to dispose off.

After  a few pulls on the starter rope the outboard turned over and ran at a nice pace.  It is quieter than I had expected, and I think more powerful.  The powerhead is about 30% larger than the powerhead on the Nissan, which will take some getting used to - though the space it takes up in Spartina is not used for any other purpose.  And the brighter, almost silver color makes the outboard more noticeable.  I suspect I will notice it until I don't notice it anymore.

I was glad to see the crystal clear water in the bucket after running the outboard for about ten minutes.  With the old two-stroke the water would have been cloudy and oily by this time.  Having a smaller footprint on the environment is a step in the right direction.

I hope to try out the new outboard on the water this weekend.

Somebody asked about my mid-life crisis, introspection and the need for self-portraits.  This is about as close as I'll get for now.  Also shot with the new camera, which seems to do well with rich, evening light.

By this time tomorrow this blog should be close to having 300,000 page views, which surprises me.  Thanks for dropping by.

steve