Last Saturday, OX and I drove to Basel to book our summer holidays. Because OX can't take any long vacation between September and end of Novemeber, we thought that August would be an good time to go. And just to make sure we have some warm weather - last August was cold and rainy in Europe - we booked 2 weeks in Egypt. The first week will be a Nile cruise on the MS Regina and we will be travelling the following route: Luxor - Esna - Aswan - Abu-Simbel/Kitchener's Island then back to Luxor. From there, we leave the ship and fly to Sharm El Sheik for a relaxing beach week of non far niente (well, maybe we will do a few things). Neither of us have ever been to Egypt, so we're both very excited.
Once that was done, we went by the InterDiscount XXL shop in Basel to drop off our written conscent to have our coffee machine repaired and decided to have a look at the new DSLR cameras on the third floor. One that had caught our eye a while back was the Sony Alpha series and now that we were going to Egypt, we decided it was time to invest in a bit of a better camera. The price of the Sony A350K was set at CHF 1500 (!) including the standard 18-70mm lens kit. We looked at a few other shops that carried this model, but could find nothing below that price. As soon as we got home, OX started a web search for better offers. And so we found it and ordered online. For basically the same price, we got said camera incl. lens kit, plus an extra battery, an 8GB compact flash card and a very nice Sony camera bag.
On Monday morning, OX already had an e-mail in his inbox saying that his order had been processed and sent out. When I got home on Tuesday evening, I found a notice from the post office to pick-up a parcel. Talk about fast! Of course, the post office was already closed, so the next morning at 8.00am, OX was standing at the post office counter picking up the parcel. He even drove back home to charge the battery so that I could start playing around with our new toy (I'm ususally at home before he is). Isn't that sweet of him?
In order to celebrate (read: waste as little time as possible cooking), I ordered some Indian take-away, left the office early and picked-up the food on the way home. I was standing in front of the terrace door searching for my key, when I realized that I had left them on my office desk! Stupid woman, I thought. So there I was, standing on the terrace with my Indian take-away food in a shady 12-13°C. Dale was looking at me through the glass doors, scratching and begging to go out while I was looking at the Sony box patiently sitting on the table, just waiting for me to try it out. I tried to get a hold of OX, but no luck. After 10 minutes, I tried again, and he immediately picked up. Twenty minutes later, he came to the rescue and opened up. We were both like little kids at Christmas opening boxes and unpacking the accessories. We did a few test shots at home, but that's about all we could do in the evenings. BTW, the Indian take-away food was excellent!
Since OX was in Lucerne yesterday at a 1 day exhibition, I finally had my first real opportunity to take the camera out for a stroll through our neighbourhood and just play with the basic settings to get used to it. The weather was pretty good, so that really made my day. Here are a few of my favourite shots.
I still have a lot to learn; not only about the functions, but I seem to look at my surroundings much more consciously.
The rest of the picts can be found here. Let me know what you think. Really.
Note: Let me know if you can enlarge the picts when clicking on them. Blogger seems to give me totally different HTML codes, depending on the size and position. I just know that if I use small/left, or right, it usually works, if I user med. or large, they usually won't enlarge, and I wonder whether it has to do with using Explorer or Firefox.
Addendum: I just tried to upload this post with Firefox, and now I can't enlarge ANY of the picts.
Once that was done, we went by the InterDiscount XXL shop in Basel to drop off our written conscent to have our coffee machine repaired and decided to have a look at the new DSLR cameras on the third floor. One that had caught our eye a while back was the Sony Alpha series and now that we were going to Egypt, we decided it was time to invest in a bit of a better camera. The price of the Sony A350K was set at CHF 1500 (!) including the standard 18-70mm lens kit. We looked at a few other shops that carried this model, but could find nothing below that price. As soon as we got home, OX started a web search for better offers. And so we found it and ordered online. For basically the same price, we got said camera incl. lens kit, plus an extra battery, an 8GB compact flash card and a very nice Sony camera bag.
On Monday morning, OX already had an e-mail in his inbox saying that his order had been processed and sent out. When I got home on Tuesday evening, I found a notice from the post office to pick-up a parcel. Talk about fast! Of course, the post office was already closed, so the next morning at 8.00am, OX was standing at the post office counter picking up the parcel. He even drove back home to charge the battery so that I could start playing around with our new toy (I'm ususally at home before he is). Isn't that sweet of him?
In order to celebrate (read: waste as little time as possible cooking), I ordered some Indian take-away, left the office early and picked-up the food on the way home. I was standing in front of the terrace door searching for my key, when I realized that I had left them on my office desk! Stupid woman, I thought. So there I was, standing on the terrace with my Indian take-away food in a shady 12-13°C. Dale was looking at me through the glass doors, scratching and begging to go out while I was looking at the Sony box patiently sitting on the table, just waiting for me to try it out. I tried to get a hold of OX, but no luck. After 10 minutes, I tried again, and he immediately picked up. Twenty minutes later, he came to the rescue and opened up. We were both like little kids at Christmas opening boxes and unpacking the accessories. We did a few test shots at home, but that's about all we could do in the evenings. BTW, the Indian take-away food was excellent!
Since OX was in Lucerne yesterday at a 1 day exhibition, I finally had my first real opportunity to take the camera out for a stroll through our neighbourhood and just play with the basic settings to get used to it. The weather was pretty good, so that really made my day. Here are a few of my favourite shots.
I still have a lot to learn; not only about the functions, but I seem to look at my surroundings much more consciously. 
The rest of the picts can be found here. Let me know what you think. Really.
Note: Let me know if you can enlarge the picts when clicking on them. Blogger seems to give me totally different HTML codes, depending on the size and position. I just know that if I use small/left, or right, it usually works, if I user med. or large, they usually won't enlarge, and I wonder whether it has to do with using Explorer or Firefox.
Addendum: I just tried to upload this post with Firefox, and now I can't enlarge ANY of the picts.
