I’m going to try to get out twice on weekdays this week, because it’s been ages since I’ve done that. I seem to have degenerated into a one-midweek, once-at-the-weekend pattern, mostly since the Bristol 10K. I think I need to start building the average miles up a bit again, and get out when I can.
Today’s jog was very much the same as the last, just 5K out along the towpath and back. It wasn’t a brilliant experience. It was muggy and I was tired, and I just got out there, did it and came back, stopping only to play with my new camera a bit.
New camera? Yes! To mark my first stone of weight loss since I took up jogging, I bought myself a better pocketable camera, this time going for the Sony Cybershot DSC-TX1, which is a nifty little thing, and may turn out to be better than my late, lamented Panasonic Lumix FP8. Only time and a few pictures in better light and better weather than we had tonight will tell.
It’s certainly better than the Lumix FP3 that I used as an intermediate replacement. I quickly learned to dislike the FP3, with its annoyingly useless touchscreen and rubbish, noisy image quality. What’s the point of 14 million pixels if six million of them are displaying sensor noise? Grr.
So, I think this is a good purchase, and a nice reward for losing 16lbs so far. Maybe if I lose another stone, I’ll get myself an iPad…
Congrats on the stone lost!
What happened to your Lumix? My dad has a TZ7 and loves it, and I was looking at the TZ10 (or else the TZ9 without the slightly odd and battery-eating GPS). That would be to upgrade from my Cybershot DSC-H1 which has nothing at all wrong with it except I’d love something smaller… its winning features are running on AA batteries and having a 12x optical zoom. Look forward to reading about what you think of the Sony!
I replaced the FP8 that I washed (argh!) with an FP3, and the FP3 is, frankly, crap. Poor image quality, awful touch-screen controls, sucky in many other ways.
So far, I’m a great deal more impressed with the TX1, from the image quality to silly features like its Smile Shutter, which I demonstrate here
. I’ve not had it long enough in weather that wasn’t dreadful (it’s hammering down outside right now) to really give it a proper test, but it’s hugely better than the FP3, and definitely better than the FP8 in terms of software.
Wow. It’s a surprise to find a genuinely crap one these days.
And after reading your post I started looking at cameras again… drooling over the Canon PowerShot SX210 IS (14x optical zoom and miniature mode!) and the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX5 (10x optical zoom, still reading the reviews). The latter also has the smile detection, which sounds fun (what does it do in group shots?). Also heartened by seeing that most cameras seem to feature improved low-light performance, as that is one of my great niggles.
But I don’t _need_ a new camera… *sigh*