A low technology weekend is something everybody should have once in a while. Time to clamp down on keyboard time an gently squeeze down on the " bandwidth consumed per hour " to actually spend some time with the family. Goffy (Nyana's sister) invited us for some Gourmet ( Where a combination of raw meat and a steaming hot plate allow you to either burn stuff to a crisp or eat cold steak). So it looks like a low tech afternoon does it not ? Yeah right. Not in THIS family. Usually everybody packs up their laptop or newest gadget before they leave and the family Christmas dinner looks more like a LAN-party then anything else (I kid : The food is MUCH better then at Lan parties).
Back to Sunday. What I have for you are not only cool family shots but also the try-outs of my new camera. Having dropped my Nikon Coolpix almost a year ago, I was growing tired of having to lock up the broken battery door with sticky tape. Its a fine camera but it was looking a little "getto" lately. So it was time to shop around and look for a nice camera. I did some surfing on the internet and browsed around what kind of camera I was looking for. As for the look and feel I was thinking about getting one of those 'bigger camera"s' ( A little bit like an SLR camera). Because they have some more possibilities and it looks a little more professional when you are shooting shots for the website. (Try making an artistic shot of people or objects holding this teeny weeny Coolpix, people think you are insane).
So last week I went out for the most time consuming way to spend your afternoon : I walked by some photography shops and let people "sell me" a camera. The first thing they ALL tried was to sell me a Sony camera. As a matter of principle I don't buy anything from Sony since the whole "rootkit thing" but they reason shops do this is because they have a much larger profit margin on Sony camera's then on any other brand (at your expense of course) And of course they all tried to sell me a 500 euro+ SLR camera. I tried to explain this was too far over my budget so the recommended this little compact hybrid camera's. (Also from Sony of course) that gave me no manual control whatsoever.
Of course I already knew what I wanted. Having spotted the exact model I wanted in a shop in Maastricht I was looking for somebody to give me a great price. But NONE of the shops even mentioned the model, not even the brand. Because these things are pretty cheap and shoot darn good colors. I was referring tot the Fuji Finepix S6500fd a hybrid camera with the look and feel of an SLR (manual zoom and focus ring) the automated functions of a hybrid and HALF the price of an SLR. I used to own a little Fuji Finepix A201 a few years ago and took it along on quite a lot of holidays. The thing cost 250 euro's, had no zoom but shot the most amazing pictures ( see the France 2002 set on Flickr) So I liked my Finepix.
Acquisition time. : No way in hell was I going to by this camera in a small retail shop. Not only where they still forcing the Sony's up my nose, they even said the model I suggested (the Finepix s6500fd) was not something they had on the shelves and that it was hard to acquire. ( Hoggwash ! ) So some extensive price searching brought me from the highest price (375 euros), to the lowest one ( 295 euros ) but in the end I bought a second hand one on the net (from an old school buddy of mine) With the bottom price of 205 euros (including the bag and the card) I was pleased with my new toy. After digging through the 150 page manual it was time to take it our for trail runs so .. enjoy these ones and more to come.