When Bicycles Influence Your Decision-Making
After losing my faithful old Sony I’d been making-do with borrowing my son’s camera to document my cycling-life. It did an okay job but I wasn’t totally happy with the quality and it was poor in low-light situations with a slow lens and lots of noise in the pictures.
Compact Film vs Compact Digital
I’m going to Antarctica next month for the (Erebus Remembrance Flight) and wanted a fitting photographic record of the adventure for myself and my family. That warranted the purchase of a replacement camera and I’ve been pawing-over online reviews and hassling shop-assistants the past couple of months.
I had my favourites all lined-up but in the back of my mind I was thinking “this thing’s got to be pocketable so I can carry it around on my bike”. When I viewed them in the flesh they were all a bit bulkier than I imagined.
One of the first shots I took, The Midget Assassin on her Christmas present.
For those of you with a photography-bent I’d narrowed it down to the Lumix LX7, The Fujifilm X10 (just gorgeous) and the Canon G15. I held-off and held-off but knowing I’d need a month using the thing before hitting the ice I finally got serious in the Boxing Day sales. As luck would have it a model from Sony (RX100) that I hadn’t considered because of the high price was heavily discounted and with a free case thrown-in to boot. I thrashed the credit-card within an inch of it’s life and went for it.
Yours truly in Woodhill Forest.
The learning-curve has been steep (it’s a capable little thing with lots of manual-control) but I’m enjoying the process immensely. The real bonus is the Sony is considerably smaller that the others I looked at and perfect for carting around on the bike. It fits in my frame-bags, my Camelbak and the pocket of my shorts. The only trouble now is after being unable to ride for two months I’m struggling to actually stop pedaling long enough to take a picture, I’m having such a good time!
PERFECT, decision well made then, cycling was the winner on the day!
Here’s a few images that I’m reasonably happy with, don’t be too harsh, I’m only a beginner. So much to learn…
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And even though it is 99% about bikes I do take photos of other things on occasion:
happy for you Antoine, those are already cool looking shots — looking forward to see them this year +happy new year 2013
-meli
Nice shots. I’ve been on/off looking at the RX100 – offers a lot in a little package!
Thankyou, I’m really enjoying learning more about photography with this camera. Unfortunately I just found out last night my Antarctic trip this week (the impetus for buying a decent camera when I have no money!) has been postponed until next summer because it has been warm down there and the runway is not safe for big planes.
The key for me with the RX100 is the size – it really is a “compact”. I was tempted by the smaller micro-four-thirds models (for similar money) but the kit-lenses they come with are slow and bulky even though the bodies are small.
Now I just need to win Lotto so I can get serious with big brother, the Sony RX1!