Announcing Steve’s European Adventure, my new Canon G9, and some mediocre photos

February 6, 2008 | Filed Under Objects, Photos 

OK so I know a lot of you just look at the pictures and don’t read what I actually write. If so, at least read the last two paragraphs and let me know your thoughts!

Are you wanting more blog posts? Are you ready to dream of far away places? Well I sure hope so because that is what you’re going to get starting next week. I will be embarking on Steve’s European Adventure v2.0 next week! Version 1.0 took place back in 2000 when I visited most of Belgium, Amsterdam, Paris, and Prague. I have some pictures from that but they are buried somewhere in the garage, remember when we used to use film?

This go-around I will be visiting friends in Berlin and London, and taking another little weekend trip to Krakow, Poland. I’ve got to learn how to properly pronounce my last name one way or another, and I figured that going straight to the source would be the best way.

Yeah, I know it’s the middle of winter and the weather is going to mostly suck. But I’m on a budget and you really can’t use frequent flier miles to Europe at any time when normal people would actually want to go there. So beggars can’t be choosers and I’m going to bring my down coat and ski hat and enjoy the tourist-free streets thank you very much.

I learned a lesson during my 3 weeks in Florida last month. That lesson is that I’m going to take more pictures than I will have time to actually edit, and when I get home I will be very, very behind. So my plan is to bring just a small camera and take some tourist pictures. Since *somebody* lost my Casio Exilim while skiing last month, I bought a new Canon G9 to take with me. 12 megapixels, RAW image capture, 35mm-210mm range, manual controls, Image Stabalization, and it fits in my pocket. It’s pretty sweet, but I’ve been too busy behind the desk and meeting with clients to actually test the camera out. So that is what this picture set is about. With some fresh snow on the ground, I walked to the coffee shop and took some pics along the way to test it out.

Well the first thing that I learned is that f2.8 on this camera doesn’t work the same as f2.8 on an SLR sized piece of glass. You really don’t get much bokeh (out of focus part of the image). Like this image above, the far end of the bench is more or less as in focus as the front. This is pretty disappointing, since I like to blur stuff out. A lot. But at normal apertures it takes pretty sweet pictures for a small camera, and having a 210mm lens in your pocket is nice too.

So now I am left with the question. Can I really go to Europe for 10 days without my pro camera? I will lose the ability to take pics with bokeh, wide angles, or low light shots (because the noise performance at hight ISO isn’t very good). Churches and castles won’t be the same. What I will gain is the ability to have my camera in my pocket, and not be carrying a backpack full of lenses all over the place, and maybe take a real vacation away from work a little bit. I also won’t have to worry about someone swiping my expensive gear.

Hmmmmm. I don’t know. I sure like taking cool pictures. What am I to do?

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