My road to Santiago took a little detour around Lion's Head today. Lion's Head is situated right next to our beautiful city and looking down on all the office buidings and busy streets from up there, I realised once again how fortunate I am. I have to admit that there was no way that you would have been able to convince me to exchange my hiking boots and backpack for an office suit today!
I'm also starting to come to grips with my little Olympus digital camera. The fact that I won't be able to take my normal (too bulky) camera with me to Spain, really bothers me as I really want to capture my journey as best I possibly can. After all, other than memories I will carry with me, a photographic record is the next most important thing that I am going to bring home with me.
The little green Olympus was purchased to go all the way up Kilimanjaro with me as the pamphlet promised that it would operate at minus 10 degrees Celsius and would survive a fall of one and a half meters. It also boasted that it would function underwater! Well, it certainly has lived up to the first promise, I'm yet to test the other two. The problem that I have with it is that I never got to read the manual before my Kili trip. My plan was to educate myself the evening before the climb. Imagine my disappointment when I realised that I did not have the correct plug with me to recharge the battery.This meant that if I played around with it, I would have no way to recharge the battery and I could not risk running out of battery power just as I was about to take that BIG picture on the very top of Africa! As it turned out, the three batteries I took with, lasted exactly as long as I needed it to.
To cut a long story short, I was too tired to study instructions and thought I'd just click away and hope for the best. Well, the pictures were ok, but not special and I felt that I had wasted my money. I just can't bear spending money on another camera though when, in fairness, this little one has still been largely unexplored. I've taken it on two of my hikes now and the above pics were taken on the automatic mode. Slowly but surely I'm going to experiment with the manual settings and see what it produces before I decide whether to stick with it or not.
If you've walked the Camino and have any advice regarding this issue, I'd love to hear from you.
As for the detour of today, it was well worth taking! A single canon shot announces midday in Cape Town every day. We had planned to be at the place where this happens today. As it turned out we didn't stick to our planned pace and instead enjoyed the view whilst enjoying our snacks and chatting away - just enjoying the company!
What a special way to spend a Thursday. I hope that life has a few dozen more of these in store for me.
As for the Camino - if these weekly detours are indicators of things to come, I can see that 34 days in Spain is definitely not going to be enough!
having done two Camino's a year for the last 3 years,I know a little sad but it is on my doorstop!!! like you all I carry is a small Olympus and I think it has served me well,its more important to have an eye for the shot and that you have got
ReplyDeleteIan
I was happy with my Sony Cyber-shot...but then again, I have never used a really good camera...so my expectations are less!! :-) Take a look at Ians pics too...he got some really good ones with that Olympus of his. K
ReplyDeleteIan - I envy you!! Two Camino's a year - heaven! Glad to hear you use the same little camera, going to check out your pics right now...
ReplyDeleteKarin - Your Camino photos are also great, I remember asking you about your camera once. Seems to me I'm going to just have to figure out all the functions of my little Olympus as I go along - the Thursday hikes are great, gives me the opportunity to play around.