In playing with the new camera, I came across a particular fact of life as an Astropotamus: I do not have night vision. As a result of not having night vision, I cannot see in the dark without an external light source. And if I shine a bright light in the dark, my eyes will stop being dark adapted for a while. It’s then that you should avoid walking on a raised concrete walkway.
The camera was still on a basic photography tripod, and I was starting to get more familiar with the computer interface. But I forgot to use the camera AC adapter, so the battery was dying on the camera. I decided to change to the AC adapter. But to change to the AC adapter, I had to take out the battery. Which required taking the camera off the tripod, undoing the quick release catch, popping out the battery, and inserting the AC adapter into the battery compartment. This meant I turned on a flashlight so I wouldn’t drop the new camera.
I put it all back together and went to go sit down in the chair with the laptop on it that was connected to the camera. And promptly put my foot into thin air and just about killed myself falling off what passes as our back walkway. Luckily the massive amount of wild mint that is growing there saved me from putting my face in the dirt.
And all I got was this lousy picture. Well, maybe not so lousy. In fact, this picture isn’t even from that night. This is from a few nights ago when we had a major storm with more lightning than this Astropotamus can remember for quite a while. Some handheld shots on bulb setting proved the easiest way to capture some of these strikes.
This one was one of my favorites. Did you know that lightning is hotter than the surface of the sun? More on that in a future post.