Thursday, or Thereabouts - January 15, 2015

New Toy - New Joy

Among my Christmas bounty was one very grand present - this beauty:

It's a bit scary to hold something so powerful, so sophisticated: 24 megapixels of raw+jpeg images in panorama, HDR or video and even WiFi. Oh my! I hardly dared touch it for almost ten days, save only to attach the viewfinder eye cup, a lens cap lanyard and a wrist strap and even those little tasks were accompanied by held breath and ever so slight finger trembling. Of course I did turn it on a few times to ooh and ahh at the display, zoom in and out a few times, but then I tucked my shiny new toy away again, afraid I might do something wrong. Technology is like that - exciting and intimidating all at the same time - kind of like my stability ball?

The remedy is knowledge. So I researched and then downloaded a massive manual, "The Complete Guide to Sony's Alpha 6000 Digital Camera" and dove in. There was jaw-dropping wonder almost everywhere I looked. Kudos to Gary L. Friedman and Ross Warner for putting together such a comprehensive guide in such accessible language! Well done guys! I've got the manual on both my desktop and tablet, so I'll be able to look up stuff when travelling.

I hung in, up close and personal, with the reading as long as I could, until my eyes glazed over and my brain overloaded. Then the time came for this photographer to get her head out of the book, pick up the camera and just go play. I tucked my new best buddy into my jacket pocket and out into the bitter cold (-15 to -20°C). No obsessing about settings or composition, just click away. We had a blast together and I'm loving the results, especially the low light pictures (all hand held).

Soap bubble forming crystals at -20C

Boiling water tossed into -20C air

My old Lumix DMX-TZ5 is taking our separation well and will still be able to slip into that small space in my pants pocket ready for clandestine use in the forbidden places (Sistine Chapel and the like). But the big old clunker Nikon D70s may just have fallen into the role of an expensive doorstop. The Sony and I are going to need a little more time to get to know each other but I'm confident we'll be ready for this year's travel adventure - The Galapagos!

Smile!