camera obscura

 So, you know how in past posts I've said things like "these pictures aren't very good because we just took our little point-and-shoot instead of hauling our big camera with us", or "we didn't want to bring our valuable camera with us to China so we just took our light little point-and-shoot"? And then the pictures are all blurry and grainy and kangaroos have red eye?
Yeah, even though I love our Nikon dSLR, it really hasn't been working for us in Hong Kong. We just find that it is too heavy and cumbersome to carry with us, and it's one more valuable (but far less valuable than our two most important valuables!) that we have to keep track of. I almost never take it with me when I'm out and about in Hong Kong. Around Christmas, I even ordered myself a fun purse that's actually a camera bag, thinking that I would take it with me more if I had a cushioned space to keep it, but the camera bag is so heavy with it in it that it gives me a sore shoulder, so I've ended up just using my nice camera bag as a purse, and unfortunately I still usually leave my camera home. 
So we own a nice camera, yet have been taking pictures with our OLD little Canon that we bought in Korea in 2005?! That just doesn't make sense when you consider how much camera technology has improved and how inexpensive point-and-shoots are these days. 
We weren't sure if we should replace our point-and-shoot, or just get iPhones already (I think we're just waiting till we move back to Canada to do that) or what we should do, but a reallyreally good salesman who had ONE Lumix GF3 left at an INCREDIBLE price made the decision easy! 
Ha! We've actually been admiring all the cool mirrorless cameras out there for a while. They are so light and small compared to our beast of a camera, and the interchangeable lenses that they keep making to go with them is pretty great.
So, the point of all this, is we bought a new camera. I was actually very reluctant, and Mike and the salesman had to convince me, but I am coming around and admit that it is very cool. It's just hard to learn something new, but one of the neatest things is that you do everything with the touchscreen, including just pressing what you want the camera to focus on. So fun! We don't know if we'll sell our old one, but these are some of the pictures we've taken as we've been trying to figure out how to use it.

 On Saturday after I came home from tutoring and the rain finally stopped, we took a little trip out to Discovery Bay. 

 Having supper in one of our favorite restaurants. mmmm....chicken tikka and kebabs!

 That green space you can see out our window is Tsing Yi Park. Leila and I went for a little walk there this morning. We love going there, but unfortunately Hong Kong has nasty sand flies that love the two of us, but for some reason leave Mike and Annika alone. Anywhere "beach-y" or "park-y" is full of sandflies these days. Boo... 

 We really love this playground, though. It's so green with a lovely canopy of trees overhead. 

Even though I had to be convinced, I think we will really like this camera. It will definitely come in handy since it is so small to take with us. I know dSLR's are all the rage, but I think maybe these small mirrorless cameras are the way to go. But what do I know? Time will tell, I guess...