Archilibra Journal

January 26, 2005 - New Camera

One of the expensive side effects of Laura's visit was digital camera lust. She has this great pocket sized digital camera that is so light and small it was never a question if we should lug it along or not. The camera I have been using is an old school digital dinosaur. It was top of the line in its day - I shelled out a mountain of cash for it when I bought it about five years ago. Unfortunately, by today's standards, it is big, clunky and slow.

Well, a few days with Laura's camera and I was in trouble... I started slowing down every time we would pass a camera shop. I started lingering at electronic stores and spending hours reading digital camera reviews on the internet. It wasn't any help that Japan is the most gadget hungry county I've ever been in. These guys have a serious love affair with electronics - and the smaller the better. It is impossible to walk a hundred yards without being exposed to thousands of the latest and greatest gadgets on the planet - cell phones, cameras, camcorders, dvd players, pocket translators... They are everywhere you turn.

For example, if something interesting is happening on the street you'll see a crowd of people with cell phones raised over their heads snapping the action and emailing the pics to every soul on their phone list, who if the photos are worthy, will in turn forward the images onto their list... In a brief instant, a exponential network of people scattered throughout who knows where is tuned into whatever just happened right next to me. It is a steep slope here and I was sliding fast.

Fortunately Diana, the proud owner of a monster digital SLR, the Nikon D70 (everyone pooled resources to get her as a graduation gift) understands camera lust. Not 5 days after Laura was gone I had purchased a new camera, the Olympus m-40 digital (the stylus 500 in the states). Ah, back on top of technology...

This is a shot of the construction behind our apartment (one of the first taken with the new camera). These guys work hard - six days a week from 8:00 in the morning to 7:00 at night.