Advertisement
Published: February 2nd 2010
Edit Blog Post
And again, a week creeps by without me posting. I do hope that you don't think that I'm neglecting you, my dear readers.
The truth is that there's not much to tell with regards to preparations. Well, OK, there's a bit. Shall we crack on?
A brief history of (my) time (over the past week) On Thursday I got my yellow fever jab. It takes 10 days for it to start working so I'll be covered for the trip. And it didn't hurt a bit (except for the £40 that it cost me!)
I also popped into TK Max and picked up a lightweight fleece and a pair of jolly good walking socks. The fleece is really lightweight and quick-drying. And I was pleasantly surprised when I got to the till to see that it was half price!
I also picked up my Malarone (anti-malaria) tablets and took the opportunity to stock up on some other essentials for the first aid kit (Immodium, Dialralyte etc).
My sister was urging me to start eating lots of garlic - apparently it's good for keeping the mosquitos away. Well, it's also good at keeping everybody else away so I
Panasonic GF1
My new travel companion... wasn't too sure about the advice. But I did get some garlic tablets from the chemist and now I'm on one a day. Not sure that it'll keep the mosquitos away but it's healthy so why not?
I realised at some point last week that I'm not going to have enough contact lenses for my trip. I get daily disposables and they send them out every couple of months. So I've had to chase that up - still not heard anything back from them though.
I DID hear back from the hostel in Bogotá though. My first few night's accommodation is booked! I kinda feel better that I have a place to stay.
And the rest of the week has been all about cramming Spanish (how many words can I fit in my head?), paperwork (VAT returns, annual company return), and karaoke (now
that was fun!).
I blame my mum So yesterday, I spoke to my mum who was telling me all about her new camera.
And that got me back to thinking about what I'm going to take with me camera-wise. I've been umming and urring for some time about this. I was torn
Camera Cases Compared
Then Goldilocks tried the medium-sized camera...and it was just right. between my tiny Canon point-and-click which is OK for snapshots (and tiny) and also shoots video (so I wouldn't need to take a separate video camera) but doesn't give much control over the shot. The other option is my Sony DSLR which is great for getting a shot just right but enormous so not in keeping with my desire to travel light - and it doesn't shoot video. The other problem with the DSLR is that it's so obviously a reasonably expensive camera and there are places that I will be where whipping out a big camera is not going to be such a smart idea.
The thing is that I know that my trip is going to offer up opportunities for great shots and if I don't have my DSLR then I'm going to regret it.
Ho hum, what to do? Well, I did what I always do in this situation and did some research (how did I
ever survive without Google?)
Now I could list all the sites that I went to, but that would be utterly tedious. So to cut a long story short, the name that kept cropping up was the
Panasonic Lumix GF1. I read
St Margaret's Church, Blackheath
The first shot with the Panasonic GF1.
Mental note - when shooting in the dark on a freezing cold February evening, use a tripod! rave review after rave review about this particular product.
But still I was unsure - could it really do the business? And then I stumbled upon
this fieldtest. And I was sold. Did you look at the link yet? Do you see the quality of photos that this guy has taken? Well, I can't hope to get anywhere close to these results (well, maybe if I get lucky), but I know that if all my shots are rubbish, it won't be because of the equipment!
It was actually quite difficult to get hold of - I rang about 10 places and they'd all sold out. But finally, I called
askdirect.com and they had ONE left in stock. So I hot-footed it down to Tottenham Court Road and picked it up. It's strange, this shop has been here for years and I never noticed it before. The service there is really
REALLY excellent. It reminded me of my trip to
B&H in New York - except not as manic! Any way, it was a pleasure to shop there and if I ever need any electronic equipment again (and we all know that I will), then askdirect will be at the top of my list of retailers.
So is it any good? Well, I've not had much chance to play with it, but I have to say that I'm really impressed so far. It's small (not as small as the Canon, but a LOT smaller than the Sony). The construction feels rock solid. Functionally, it actually offers much more than my DSLR in terms of settings and whatnot. In use, the menus are all very intuitive and commonly used settings are all easy to navigate to and to change. The LCD is big and the resolution is great - at least in low light conditions.
Oh yeah, did I mention that it also shoots HD Video?
I've posted up a couple of shots. The first shows a comparison of camera cases - the large one is my DSLR, the middle one is the Panasonic and the small one is my Canon IXUS. As you can see, the difference between the DSLR and the Panasonic in terms of size is really quite significant.
The shot of St Margaret's Church was taken with my Panasonic last night on the way to the pub. You can see how cold it was by the camera shake...proof, if proof were ever needed, that I should probably get a small tripod.
And that's it for the weekly update. There are less than two weeks to go now, but I'm fairly relaxed about the whole thing. There are still a number of things to organise, but basically I feel kinda ready.
Bring it on! 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.134s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 11; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0614s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb