You may or may not have noticed, but my photos took a step up in quality in that post about our vacation. Prior to setting off for that trip I bought a new camera, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ5.
I’m decidedly not a D-SRL guy; I far prefer something I can stick in my pocket on any occasion. But I was growing tired of the limitations of the Casio Exilim that I’ve been using for several years. The Exilim was extremely pocketable and the photos were usually very good, but it’s 3.2 megapixel resolution was growing old and its movie mode (which I use quite a lot) is frustratingly limited to 30 second clips. I finally decided that if I was in the market for an upgrade, doing so before the trip made sense.
After my usual barrage of research I gravitated to the Lumix line, and specifically the 9 megapixel TZ5. Besides the high quality Leica lens unit, the TZ series standout with their 10x optical zoom. I was never too unhappy with the 3x zoom on the Exilim, but after trying the 10x it was too hard to go back. Having a long(ish) lens is not something you might use all the time, but it’s sure nice when you need it. I’m looking forward to my next set of concert shots! On the other end of the spectrum, the wide angle goes down to 28mm, which is better than I’m used to as well. The TZ5 also has all kinds of (now typical) features that the Exilim doesn’t, such as optical stabilization (low light and motion pictures will be much clearer) and face recognition (a fancy auto-focus method). It also has a really detailed and bright 3″ LCD.
The real exciting improvement though is the ability to shoot video clips of any length and all the way up to 16:9 HD movies (1280×720 @ 30fps). The high quality movies look absolutely great, but they eat up about 184MB a minute so it’s nice that there’s several lower resolution and frame rate options.
All in all the only downside to the camera is that it’s got a bit more bulk than what I’m used to. I’m accustomed to my gadgets growing smaller with each upgrade, but in this case the features of the ultra-compacts just didn’t stand up. The TZ5 still easily tucks away in a pants or jacket pocket so it’s not bad.
Posted Friday, August 29th, 2008 2:48 PMNo Comments
D and I are huge fans of the Olympic games – especially ever since making the trip to Atlanta 12(!) years ago. After being in the Virgin Islands and not catching much of the week 1 events, I’ve really been making up for it in week 2. We’re watching a good 4+ hours of coverage a night – all with a slight DVR delay so we can skip commercials of course.
I’ll admit, it took me a little bit to warm up to the games this time around with all the torch run shenanigans and human rights and environmental issues surrounding the host country. But sure enough, play that Olympic theme a few times and I’m ready to paint the five rings on my face.
Something very cool this time around is that with the popularity of blogging you can now follow a lot of athletes online and hear about their experiences first hand. It’s a fascinating glimpse at the day to day trials and triumphs of the athletes. You also get stories about life in the Olympic Village, meeting other athletes, and sights around Beijing. Here are a few:
Seven days, all-inclusive, in the Virgin Islands. It doesn’t get much better. D and I set off with another couple for a final week of play before the return of the school year and as a belated birthday bash for myself. It wasn’t a last minute trip by any means, but it was only planned out about a month ahead of time which kept the pangs of anticipation to a moderate level. Best of all I didn’t have to plan a thing – D set the whole thing up with her travel agent buddy (who steered us right before with our trip to Riviera Maya a few years past).
Getting There 5am came really early wed morning as we got up and got ready ready to head out. After long term parking, check in, security, and the rest of the morning hustle, we were greated at the gate with notice that our flight had been delayed forty minutes due to a mechanical problem. About a half hour later, the maintenance crew was still working and the departure time was pushed back another half hour. At this point it was clear we’d never make our Atlanta connection to St Thomas so we started working with the gate agents. Turns out, the flight to St Thomas that we’d be missing was Delta’s only flight there that day. After checking many other cities and other airlines, a Delta rep finally found a plan that would get us to the island that day. Instead of flying to Atlanta, we caught a Delta flight to Fort Lauderdale. From there a car service transported us to Miami International and we checked in for an America Airlines flight to St Thomas. After much trouble checking in for the AA flight and an extremely thorough security screening, we got to this gate and, after waiting over two hours, found this flight too was delayed about 45 minutes. Eventually we did get to the island (around 10pm)- about seven hours later than planned.
Home Away From Home We stayed at the Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort – a pretty awesome facility that sits atop a steep shore line and wraps around its own little peninsula. We couldn’t see much in the dark the night we got in and our ocean view was completely black except for a few points of light from St John. But that made waking up to our view all that more spectacular.
The resort has a great set of pools (and a really HOT hot tub) complete with waterfalls, grotto, and foot bridge.
There were also two restaurants, a couple bars, a video poker lounge, a nice fitness center, a spa, and more. The resort’s beach was small and pretty rocky, but there was tons of coral and other sea creatures putting on a nice show for the snorkelers among us.
We spent the first couple days mostly hanging out in the pool or on the beach while enjoying fruity cocktails in the sun. We soon saw how the resort’s beach is a hot spot for weddings. During our stay there’s was an average of about one wedding per day. Although the views are scenic, the choice of location is far from private considering all the hotel guests (including kids) strolling about. In first wedding we saw the groom looked just like Bernie Mac. Two days later we heard the news of Bernie’s death, which caused us to suspect he pulled an Elvis and retired to the islands.
Heart Shaped Beach Our first trip out of the resort was to the biggest beach on St Thomas, and reportedly the 7th best in the world, Magen’s Bay. After spending time at the small Wyndham beach, Meagan’s Bay was very nice. The beach was very long, soft and sandy, and beautifully framed by the bay. There was a bar on the beach with a waitress that would actually wade out into the water to take your drink order. The only downside to this beach was that you had to watch out for dive bombing sea birds.
Island Hopping Amanda’s cousin, Pete, lives on St John and Sunday we grabbed a ferry over from St Thomas and hooked up with him. Pete owns a powerboat rental shop and was kind enough to boat us around (free of charge!!). After walking around the port area, having a morning drink at a local biker bar, and meeting some of Pete’s crew, we spun around St John and over to the British Virgin Island, Jost Van Dyke. As much as St John is more natural and primitive than St Thomas, JVD is equally more so than St John. JVD only has one dock on the whole island and it’s at the customs office/police station. While Pete was checking us in through customs we checked out Foxy’s bar – he’s a local celebrity of sorts, always cracking jokes and spinning tales.
From there we went to the next beach over at White Bay. Since there’s no dock, boats just pull in, drop anchor, and you swim/wade to shore. There are about 5-6 bar/restaurants on the beach and the most famous of them, the Soggy Dollar, gets its name literally from everyone’s wet money from coming ashore. The beach here was absolutely awesome – a palm tree lined long stretch of white sand against a clear blue shallow shore.
The Soggy Dollar is the home of the “Painkiller”, a rum drink which is true to its name. We had several. It was mind blowing to see the number of painkillers they serve up. At one point the bartender Mic made 23 at once. Take a look as he burns through a bottle and a half of rum.
Toward evening Pete picked us up and brought our drunken selves back to St John where we had more drinks and some great late night eats. By the time we caught the last ferry back to St Thomas I was beat and couldn’t keep my eyes open!
One More Time! Turns out we spent our last full day of vacation doing almost the same thing – a ride to JVD, a stop at Foxy’s, several drinks at the Soggy Dollar, and many hours on the beach. One new stop was a walk further down the beach to Ivan’s Stress Free Bar. Ivan’s is an honor bar. With no one working inside, you go in, see what’s behind the bar, make yourself a drink, and leave some cash in a tackle box. Nothing else sums up the spirit of the islands quite like that! This adventure ended with a death-defying boat ride back to St Thomas as Pete fired up his throttle and sent his fastest boat crashing over the waves. I don’t know what’s worse, hearing the cry of the engines as they came out of the water, or the crash you feel when the boat comes down.
This post is getting really long… To sum up the other sights around St Thomas…wild chickens, wild cows, hundreds of jewelry shops, beautiful botanical gardens, duty free liquor, the home of the banana daiquiri, and breathtaking views everywhere.
Posted Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 1:54 PMNo Comments
