March 30, 2013

Fancy Toys

A few weeks ago, I was riding a bicycle in Bagan, Burma, and holding our trusty Canon G10 camera (which we've had for over 4 years). A tourist man in a horse buggy was coming the opposite direction and his cane fell through the carriage to the street. He was panicked about it and, as the driver struggled to get the horses stopped, I noticed cars coming towards his cane in the street. So, I jumped off my bike to retrieve his cane. That was nice of me, right? But then I tripped over my bike and landed face down in the street, tangled in the bars and wheels of the bicycle. As I crashed down, so did our camera and the LCD screen shattered. Oops.

Back in Bangkok, we took it to a Canon store and they said it could be fixed, but that it would take FOUR WEEKS! We don't have that kind of time so, because we had been thinking about upgrading our photography equipment for quite some time, we pulled the trigger and started looking for a new toy.
Don't worry - we'll get the G10 fixed when we're back home. The camera still works.
It's just the back panel that needs replaced.
Lucky for us, our local mall in Bangkok (our friend, Jerome's, apartment sort of felt like home to us) was having a huge photography event, so we were able to try out all the newest cameras and technology from Canon, Panasonic, Sony, Polaroid, Olympus, etc... After doing research and playing around for a few days, we decided to stick with Canon and get the new Canon Rebel T3i (600D) with a 135mm lens.



The Rebel T3i is a significan jump for us in terms of price, capabilities and quality of photograph. And we're just now starting to learn the tiniest bit about photography, so bear with us. For the most part, we have no idea what we're doing and we just turn things and push buttons until we end up with a photo that doesn't burn our eyes and, hopefully, gives you a good idea of where we are and what we're seeing. So far, we're loving the camera and having a blast taking photos. It takes some work but, when we get it right, it's SO worth it!

We're hoping you see an improvement in our photos - we even picked up an additional lens (a 50mm for portraits and landscapes) and bought the Photoshop Lightroom software to start doing some photo editing. (Note: We didn't start using this camera until we arrived in Koh Lanta, Thailand, so you should hopefully see an upgrade beginning with that post and those pictures.) We also still have our Panasonic Lumix TS-20 Tough (which we LOVE) and our GoPro Hero HD2 (which we like).

So, talented friends and family (especially those of you whose photography skills make us swoon), if you have any suggestions, send them our way!



2 comments:

  1. Most of the digital editing work which one normally needs to do can be done with Google Picasa which is free.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not sure if your traveling with a Windows or Mac computer, but for almost all my pictures I just use the free Windows Live Photo Gallery editor and Picasa for when I need to create collages.

    For learning the camera and tips / tricks in the past I have really enjoyed Ken Rockwell's blog - http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech.htm

    ReplyDelete