Camera Specs: Canon Rebel Xsi, 18-55mm f3.5-5.6, 55-200mm f4.5-5.6

It’s been nearly a year since we embarked on our 2009 summer vacation and would you believe I am just now getting around to cataloguing the images???? We want to publish a photo book of our 2.5 week vacation out west so I’ve been sorting through the images by location. Here are the images we will be putting in the “Santa Fe” section of the book. I still have to sort through images from Colorado, Utah and Arizona. It’s a big job but it will be well worth the effort! I ought to have this finished up before THIS summer’s vacation, right?

(By the way, ALL images from last summer were shot with the Digital Rebel Xsi, my first DSLR ever. I got it on July 3rd, 2009 and we left for vacation a week later. I had no clue what aperture was, had never heard of the exposure triangle, and I didn’t even know how to hold the camera. Needless to say, I learned a few things on that trip including how to use Photoshop to edit my images and especially-never, ever, ever, ever, buy the kit lens. The images below were just edited by me today. I like a little punchy-retro-vibe for my vacay photos. Can’t wait to apply what I’ve learned this past year when we go to the Blue Ridge Mountains in a couple of weeks.)

Camera Specs: Canon Rebel Xsi, 18-55mm f3.5-5.6, 55-200mm f4.5-5.6

We decided that we needed to get a decent point and shoot camera for those times when it’s just not practical to lug around a big expensive camera AND at least 2 lenses whenever we think we might want to take a picture or two. Laaaaame. It makes me nervous to drag along the 5D MkII because let’s face it, it’s risky. Our current point and shoot camera is 4 years old and not really cutting it for my standards. So I did some research to come with our everyday camera that will pretty much stay with me everywhere we go. It’s the Panasonic Lumix LX3 and it should be arriving within a week.

I haven’t used it so I can’t speak from experience but after my obsessive compulsive research I’ve concluded that it is PERFECT. I can’t wait to play with it! It has everything you could hope for in a p+s camera (if you’re “downgrading” from a DSLR) with a super fast f2.0 Leica lens, RAW shooting mode, and an ideal 24mm up to 60mm focal length. Oh and it does shoot some okay 720p HD video. My shooting style tends to be on the wide angle end so the 24mm – 60mm focal length is not “limiting” to me in any way. The ISO goes all the way up to 3200 and with some post-processing on RAW files in Lightroom, images from the Panasonic Lumix LX3 should be not merely acceptable but outstanding.

We’ll still take the fancy camera gear with us for long vacations (unless it’s a big city trip probably) but the Panasonic Lumix LX3 will be with us 100% of the time regardless. I’ll look forward to using it when we’re out and about with the our son and carting the 5D around isn’t an option.

To say that our house has seen some changes through the years would be an understatement!! I thought it would be fun to see just how much it has evolved since we got married in 2006. I hope to sort through some photos to find as many “before” pictures as I can that show our house when we had carpet and before we renovated the kitchen and took out a wall.