A mini outing with the new toy [First G3 blip]

A big day for DS. The last big day was this, and the Canon PowerShot G9 has done its best for these past four years. But it had increasingly begun to frustrate me with its blown-out highlights and its over-noisy images at anything higher than 200 ISO and the image stabilisation never really performed as I'd expected. So a desire to move on has been festering away for some time now, and it all suddenly came to a head over the last three weeks or so.

When I got home last night from my usual hugely enjoyable visit with my mates Derek and Rita, I dug out the G9's box, gave it (the camera, not the box) a thorough cleaning, and packed everything up as best I could. I'd arranged yesterday to return to Conn's Cameras this morning to finalise the deal on a second-hand Lumix G3, the main outstanding aspect being what they'd offer me on the G9 as trade-in. Things were sorted quite quickly, and I left there feeling well satisfied (they threw in a 4GB memory card and I got myself a UV filter to flesh things out a bit). I studied the basic manual over scrambled egg and tea and orange juice, during which break I made up my mind to go back to Conn's and get a spare battery.

I ran a quick check of my email inbox when I got home, and was back out again by 2:15, anxious to use the new camera for a bit of blipping. I went to Malahide and walked from the Marina to the tip of the Estuary and back. Conn's had warned me that they had no idea how charged the battery was (I'd left the spare charging at home), and I guess it was inevitable that it'd start shouting at me after a mere seventy shots. I was just pointing the camera at everything which took my fancy, playing with a selection of long shots and close-ups and unusual viewpoints.

Inevitably, I agonised over what to choose as the first blip with the new camera. This one won out in the end because it's the first time I've got a decent bit of bokeh with my own camera. There are some rejects here, the first of which made the toss-up and shows this more detailed view in context.

Here's looking forward to lots of fun and loads more opportunities to do some of the things I've only dreamed of doing up until now.