
I have just taken a short trip to visit my friends in Geneva. I am lucky
that I live (and also work) at Manchester airport and that my friend
lives near Geneva airport.
With the flight only taking 2 hours, the journey from door to door is
3 hours (well, four and a half, if you include the checking in).
I always struggle with myself when I go away on holiday - what lens do I
take? The 50mm? The 10-20mm wide angle? The 18-55? The 55-200mm
telephoto? ALL OF THEM? Agh.
As much as I love my dSLR (and I do), sometimes having a choice can be a
curse. I spend so much time in planning a ‘great shot’ that I mess it up
as I ponder which lens I should use, by which time, the opportunity has
passed me by. Also, with luggage restrictions (one piece of hand luggage
per person), I couldn’t take my camerabag
anyhow)
So, I decide to do something a little unconventional for me - I left the
dSLR at home. I took the new, and quite fabulous Samsung ST1000 instead.
That way, I would have to work with what I have got. And it did exactly
what I wanted it to.
I am still a little unused to using a compact camera - I always want to
hold it up to my eye for the viewfinder. However, with the very clear
and large screen, I was confident at what I saw is what I took.
Geneva is not the prettiest of cities, and certainly not indicative of
what Switzerland is like. But, I find it to be friendly (especially my
friends who live there, naturally). Unfortunately, it is also very
expensive - and with wealth comes incredible people… My city,
Manchester is very working class and has some of the poorest areas in
the UK. Geneva, on the other hand is the complete opposite. I was
fascinated by the wealth and exuberance of people - I have never seen so
many Porsche’s, fur coats, face lifts etc.
This was just a very quick street photo of a woman who I noticed - I
love the way that she stood out in her blue cardigan against the
charcoal grey of the buildings and the conservative dress of the other
people. As I didn’t have much chance to read the manual of the camera, I
just set the camera to automatic and literally shot from the hip.
But I couldn’t have hope for a better photo - she is crisp and in focus
and the people behind have motion blur. This is also straight from the
camera too, which is helpful and gives it a more honest and ‘raw’ feel
to it (for me anyhow).
The camera does have a wealth of features - Bluetooth (so you can send
to a phone or your Mac/PC), Wifi - you can even email your photos from
your camera to friends or even Flickr or another photo hosting site (if
you are in a wifi zone) and best of all GPS so the location is displayed
in your EXIF data. This can also be displayed on Flickr.
This is something to be mindful of - for holidays, it’s a good idea, but
remember if you take a photo at home, it can display where you live.
I was thankful that the camera can shoot video too, from small web size
videos and full scale HDTV. I did use this function while I was away to
capture some moments and was very pleased with the results.
I will read the manual when I have time, I really want to see what else
this camera can do.