of mojitos and other madness: lumix-ed!

this girl has officially dived into the photography deep end and got herself a dslr. okay, maybe some of you out there might not agree that the panasonic lumix gf1 is a classic dslr by definition, but to me, its everything i want in a camera rolled in to one!

the lumix won over the olympus contender purely for its faster between pic processing, better form factor and retro (and more professional!) look. quality between the two were similar so i went with the panasonic, much to my own surprise, as i always thought cameras from original camera makers would be better. i was also considering the canon powershot s90 and lumix lx3 but decided to go with a dslr as opposed to these high end point and shoots, just because i thought i'd see if i had what it takes to be a photographer. to be honest, dslrs kinda freaked me with the technicality of iso, shutter speeds, white balance and all...i do know what they mean but to be able to figure all of the settings before taking a picture isn't quite yet my cup of tea. but these micro four-third cameras give me the option of still not thinking as much and just pointing and shooting on a not so good day, and the flexibility to learn and eventually fiddle around with the settings on better days. big plus of course is that it does not have as much weight nor bulk of a standard dslr.

all i had to do was fit the lens, turn the gf1 on, point, shoot and i was instantly hooked. the pictures turned out outstanding and i was blown away by the quality of the pictures that a noob like me could produce! i do admit i have some learning to do but with every pic saved with the full details of the settings the intelligent lumix uses, i think it should be quite soon that i can officially proclaim that i am an advanced amateur photographer!

i took a total of about seventy shots (you can see just how hooked i am!) and thought i'd sign off from here with some of my favorite shots. enjoy!