Toys

I know I have been fairly quiet lately. Honestly after the typhoon, not much has been going on. It has been a quiet summer here and I really haven't done much, plus I am quite sure you don't want to hear about grocery shopping or trips to the dentist. While it has been nice after a while you begin to realize that you haven't really accomplished anything. Being an expat *cough* Tai Tai *snort* with few demands on my time it would be easy to let it become the norm; but with school back in and line ups returning to the grocery store and ATM, I figured now is a good time to break the apathy. I need to get inspired again and what better way to break the apathy than by dealing with what frustrates you.

It really all started with this:

And this:

And finally this:

I am sure you are wondering where this is going, so here goes.  I was in Causeway Bay with some friends on a night photography shoot.  It was a nice night. There was just a slight breeze that kept it from being stifling and there was very little pollution, so it was a nice clear night. I really wanted to get some shots of the crowds crossing Hennessy Road, and I wanted to use a slow shutter speed to show the motion. The first one doesn't look too bad, but the tram is not moving, yet it is not very sharp. In the second one, not only is it not sharp, but I couldn't get a level horizon line if my life depended on it and in the last one, see those jaggies in the light streaks? Frustrating! It is even more frustrating because I was using a tripod and it let me down. 

Strangely enough, all my years in photography I have never had a decent tripod. And that night, it showed. You see I knew they wouldn't turn out like I hoped. I could see my camera moving despite the tripod. Sure it wasn't a lot, but as far as vibrations go, a little goes a long way towards ruining a photo. 

It was a wake up call for me. How can I treat myself seriously as a photographer, yet try to get by on a cheap tripod? Especially since I love night shooting! After all it is not just the camera that makes the pictures, it is the whole package (body, lens, filters...etc) coming together to produce the photographers vision. One piece fails and everything goes to pot. So I started researching tripods and this is the result: 

Cut me some slack here. This was taken with an iPhone. 

It is a Manfrotto 055CXPRO4 with a 322RC2 head (I know who will be googling that...Tad, Jen, Alex...)  and I love it. Fully extended it is taller than me! Also it is carbon fibre, so it has all the stability without the weight.

Then while looking for the tripod, I thought of another photographic dilemma. My camera itself. No I did not go and replace my body with a brand new Canon 5D Mark 3. That would only make the problem worse (and my wallet much, much lighter). You see most of the time, I just don't want to lug my camera around! Sure, I have a compact, but I find it boring and uninspiring. While looking at tripods I also looked at small cameras. The new 4/3 and mirror less systems are nice and small, they still require you to have lenses. And while they may not weigh much, they do add bulk. Then I saw the new Canon G1X and it got me thinking...There are cameras out there that will give me the manual controls and RAW shooting ability that I sometimes want, in small packages. So off I went to do more research and this is the result:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX7, in sparkling white (I am a girl after all!) 

I have only had it since this afternoon but I am happy so far. 

 And while my cats have had enough of me following them around with it, The Grinch doesn't care.

Or does he......