4 Days in Hong Kong with a New Camera

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This week I went to Hong Kong with a purpose: buy a new camera. My old one is 3 years old and was my first digital. It's gotten a lot of dirt under the lens during my travels, and when I looked into having it cleaned, it was pretty expensive. So, rather than spend a lot of money to fix an old camera, I opted to buy a new one and upgrade as well. I'm one of the few people I know who uses most of the features on my camera, so I was anxious to try out a higher quality camera with more options that allows more control to the photographer. Digital cameras are a blessing and a curse: one one hand, they give even a terrible photographer great photos, but on the other hand, they limit was a great photographer can do. Since I'm trying to move from the former category into the latter category, buying a new camera was an easy decision to make. I consulted with a friend of mine who is a professional photographer in Shenzhen and has been buying cameras in Hong Kong for over five years. His knowledge was a gold mine, literally and figuratively.

The day after New Years I started to feel run down, and by the morning I left I had a sore throat. It was raining sideways and felt bitterly cold. I knew Hong Kong would be warmer and have hearty food options and couldn't wait to get there! My bus ride was not on a nice HK bus, but rather an uninsulated Chinese bus--I could see my breath the whole trip. At customs the lines were long and my bus left me at the border. Luckily, people working at the border guided me to another bus that was going where I needed to go and I hopped on and made it to the apartment easily.

That afternoon I went to the Canon store to try out three models. The least expensive one was ruled out quicly because it could do less than my current camera--no point in down-grading. The middle one was in my price range, the features were a bit fancier than my current camera, but I didn't like the menu set-up of the fact that it felt heavy. The last one, the expensive one, was everything I dreamed about in a camera--easy to use menus and features, more controls and flexibility than my current camera, and amazing photo quality. I felt like Goldilocks and the Three Cameras. In the end, I did not fall in love with the baby camera, as the story would indicate, but rather the papa camera. The expensive one. I went out for dinner and then home to sleep on it.

Tuesday I slept in, feeling too cold to get out of bed. The apartment has no heat and was freezing. Being sick didn't help. I reminded myself that it was most likely nicer outside than in and managed to get moving. I headed down to Central, to Stanley Street, where my friend says there are good prices, reputable shops, and where pros tend to buy their gear. I went to my friend's favorite camera shop, Kinefoto, and had the most pleasant shopping experience. I was helped by one of the managers and a friend of his who was visiting the store. I got the feeling he was one of those friends who drops by often because he loves photography and they spend hours talking about it. Between the two of them, they were able to explain the cameras to me, what some technical terms meant, and within an hour I walked out with the papa camera. With the extra battery and warranty, I still paid less than I would have in the US for just the camera.

I spent the day wandering around the city, taking photos, nervous about using my new, expensive toy. I went to the laser light show at the harbor at night, figuring everyone else is taking a zillion photos and it would be a good place to try out various functions. In some cases, the only way to understand what something does is to take multiple photos of the same thing while tweaking the settings.

I spent Wednesday wandering, eating, napping, and, of course, taking photos! I went to the art museum, too, but sadly wasn't allowed to take photos. Otherwise, nothing too notable happened.

Thursday was the last day. I went to Soho (I remember there were lots of good photos to be had when I was there two years ago) and had a delicious lunch of tacos. I haven't had tacos or sour cream or guacamole or salsa since August! It was divine. Then I slowly made my way over to Central along some paths I'd never discovered before.

I went back to the apartment to gather my things after lunch. While waiting for my 330pm bus, I stopped briefly in the park next to the bus stop. It's quite pretty and has a good neighborhood feel. Then, on the bus and home again. Luckily, the bus waited for me this time.

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Photos

Buying meat
That's a big knife.

Light Show
Hey, it's a good place to try out the camera's functions!

Boat Pond
For children... and apparently a very tall child.