Camera Investment

I've been in Japan for 6 month, been to Taiwan and already been on several adventures. If there was something I was lacking, it was a decent camera for me to properly document my travels. My old camera (yes, this means that I have a new one) is a Casio Exilim camera which it atleast 2.5 years old. It's 2 megapixels with no zoom meaning that I'm only good to take close up pictures or scenic shots. Getting extreme close ups and taking medium range photos with detail was an impossibility.

I had the fortune of seeing what a real good camera (with a really good lens) can do after my trip to Yamadera (Mountain temple) during the autumn leaves season of Sendai. That photo was taken about 2 stories below with a telescopic lens. The guy knew what he was doing. I was smitten.

2 months later, after the end of the big "first sale" event of Sendai, I had stopped by the Yodobashi camera store looking for a deal for a good new camera. By 9:00 am, when I arrived, they were sold out of their cheaper cameras, leaving me to look at the more expensive ones. After some more research, I decided on a Canon EOS 350D camera and ordered one from Tokyo. The purchase would set me back about $1,000. But I saved $200 instead of buying the camera from the local Yodobashi Camera retail outfit. That's the power of the internet folks. For those living in Japan, look up www.kakaku.com for what you are looking for. Quite often you can find things online for 15%~20% cheaper than paying full price.

My camera arrived yesterday and this is what it looks like.

Here's a picture of my new camera (taken with my old camera :)

Here are some of the pictures I took today of my room:


Soysauce close up


Bottle of red wine


Posters on my wall

Initial reaction

My first reaction to this camera is a little overwhelment with all the features. It's not a bad thing. I'm usually good with technology, the only problem is that the instruction manual is all in Japanese. It's going to take a little time for me to sift through all the information... else I'll break down and find an English version somewhere. The camera comes with a set of preset shooting mores including: protrait, senic, sports, night, no flash and close up. There is also varying levels of manual modes where you can play with the arpeture sizes and shutter speeds/exposure times, white balance, color filtering and plenty more. I'm going to have to play the camera

The auto focus works pretty good with the camera being able to focus on a target in about half a second. I hope in the near future, I'll be able to post some great photos of life in and out of Sendai. Which reminds me... I have a back log of photos to post...