ATAAHUA ORA

First of all, thanks guys for your advice regarding my last post. Vince: I ended up with Canon & Sony because of similar feature sets. Nikon is a bit behind at the moment and I just can’t work out their menus. And yeah, you’re right about the IS - it’s only really necessary on long zooms and when you cannot up your sensitivity (like on my Panasonic, I almost exclusively shoot at ISO 100 - which made me an ISO freak - and the IS comes in REALLY handy). Aaron: I’m not really a studio photographer and don’t know Kelvin personally, so wouldn’t be able to ask him about the temperature of his light And the stock lens on the Canon really is a lot better.

But yesterday the decision was made after I got to play with the Canon XSi. I loved the weight and the way it just fits into my hand, I love the grip and the huge, sexy LCD. But best of all is the viewfinder, large, bright and none of that tunnel-vision you get with Alphas. LiveView is a bit strange to say the least (no AF at all and listen to that mirror crack!!) but from experience I won’t be using it all that often. As usual, I could navigate the menus without too much problem (even though I could already see how steep the learning curve will be) and I really liked the frame rate when shooting on burst. 53 jpegs at 3.5 frame per second compared with 3 (!) jpegs of Sony at barely 3 fps! Also, I wanted a Canon for a very long time so getting a Sony would probably mean I would still be yearning after a Canon.

So now I’m on the lookout for a good price. And Matt, I’m gonna hold you to that promise of playing with your lenses when I come over!

I’m now at a very exciting point in my life where I get to choose a new digital camera for myself. I finally think I’m ready for a DSLR!
Being myself, I have to make absolutely sure that I make the right decision, especially since a lot of money is being put at stake. Being myself, I have already narrowed down the choices to two cameras - so it should be pretty easy to pick. Yeah, right!
My choices are Canon 450D/XSi or Sony Alpha DSLR-A300. Here and here are two reviews for the Canon. And here and here are two reviews for the Alpha A350, which is identical to A300 apart from a slightly larger resolution.

Canon wins on (only stuff that’s important to me):

• Picture quality
• Speed of shooting (3.5 frames per second)
• ISO in viewfinder
• physical dimensions (I have yet to hold it in my hands, but the XTi feels very nice indeed)
• usage of SD/SDHC cards for storage

Sony wins on (again, only stuff I care about):

• in-camera image stabilisation (works with any lens you attach)
• tiltable LCD - useful for when you want to get that awkward shot using LiveView, or even for tripod shooting
• cheaper lenses (but are they as good?)

From these lists looks like Canon is a leader but the in-built image stabilisation is a HUGE advantage. One of the first purchases after getting the camera will be getting a telephoto zoom lens for it. I got used to my Panasonic FZ50’s 12x optical zoom AND macro capability in one lens, so will try to get something similar in functionality (like the Sigma 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 DC OS, but maybe with a less painful price tag and a bit more reach, if that’s at all possible).

Who wants to help choose? Who knows their stuff when it comes to lenses?

Help? Anyone?

or we live in a small world. During our travels on the east coast of Canada we met a couple of Australians in Toronto. We spent one night together in the same hostel, exchanged enough information to know that we were all headed to Vancouver and said goodbye - we went further north, they went west. Then, freshly back in Vancouver, we bumped into them on the Seabus and became fast friends - they were Alice and Chris. To highlight how much of a coincidence this was you need to know that the Seabus travels from Waterfront to North Vancouver every 15 minutes. We could have taken every other one and not meet them.

Yesterday was a very nice day, you could feel the spring in the air, so we decided to take that trip to White Rock, a small town just a stone’s throw from the US border. We went for a walk on the waterfront, climbed onto the White Rock pier and rushed back to the car as the parking was expiring. We moved the car to a different spot and decided to have some fish & chips for lunch. Salty sea air does that to people. The waterfront was literally lined with fish & chip shops so we took a stroll and finally decided on Kahuna’s. Placed our order inside, turned to pay and who walks in the door but Maja & Piotrek, who decided to have fish & chips for lunch on their way to the US. Coincidence?

lub, jak kto woli, ten świat jest mniejszy niż się wydaje. W czasie naszych podróży po wschodnim wybrzeżu Kanady spotkaliśmy w Toronto parę Australijczyków, z którymi spędziliśmy jedną noc w tym samym hostelu. Wymieniliśmy wystarczająco informacji, żeby wiedzieć, że wszyscy wylądujemy w końcu w Vancouver i pożegnaliśmy się. Kilka tygodni później, już po powrocie do Vancouver spotkaliśmy ich przypadkiem na Seabusie i szybko się zaprzyjaźniliśmy - to byli Alice i Chris. Dla podkreślenia jak przypadkowe było to spotkanie muszę napisać, że Seabus pływa z Waterfrontu do North Vancouver regularnie co 15 minut - równie dobrze mogliśmy wsiąść w którykolwiek inny prom i się nie spotkać.

Wczoraj, motywowani piękną pogodą i cieplejszymi temperaturami (wiosna!) wybraliśmy się w końcu do White Rock, małej mieściny o rzut kamieniem od granicy ze Stanami. Poszliśmy na długi spacer wzdłuż wybrzeża, wspięliśmy się na molo i wróciliśmy biegiem do auta, bo parking się nam kończył. Po przestawieniu samochodu w inne miejsce naszła nas ochota na rybę z frytkami na lunch (to te morskie powietrze tak działa), co powinno być łatwe do wykonania, wzdłuż wybrzeża znajdowało się mnóstwo sklepików ze smażoną rybą. Spacerując czytaliśmy menu wystawione w oknach i w końcu zdecydowaliśmy się na sklepik Kahuna. Złożyliśmy zamówienie i wtedy przez drzwiczki sklepiku weszła Maja z Piotrkiem, którzy po drodze do Stanów zdecydowali się zjeść lunch w White Rock. Zbieg okoliczności?

Eating fish & chips in White Rock / Zajadanie rybki z frytkami w White Rock

Photos from our recent mini-holiday in Banff National Park are uploaded and waiting to be discovered! Off you go! They are here.

Zdjęcia z naszego krótkiego wypadu w Góry Skaliste do Parku Narodowego Banff są wrzucone, opisane i czekają na oglądanie. Na co jeszcze czekasz? Kilk tutaj!