New camera!

During my recent trip to California I picked up a Canon PowerShot G9, a compact camera with many of the functionalities of an SLR (aperture and shutter priority + a couple of other things). Having found that the 350D can be a bit of a mission to carry around all day, the G9 makes a good compromise between a tiny (and often useless) compact, and the big dawg.  The limitation is obviously that it doesn't have tons of lenses you can stick on the front, however you can buy a wide angle and a telephoto (link), although frankly you would be hard pushed to need more than the optical + digital zoom already provided. I will definitely be investing in the wide angle though as have got used to having the 17mm on the DSLR which is great for landscape shots. 

I heard they took the G9 out of production which means it is likely that the G10 is on the way (in October as it happens) - 

typical (i bought my wife an ipod nano in LA too, new one came out 3 days later....). Although they have boosted it to 14.7mp, it will also weigh in at an extra 30g, totally 350g, not an inconsiderable weight....

Anyway, here's a few examples of the images that it can churn out - the whole lot can be found on my Flickr site though, so go visit that too.

I've also recently discovered Blurb, a publishing service that allows you to make books (not just photo books, but actual books too if you want).. They are a recently added AxiCom client so I have to put my hand up to a bit of a plug but I am genuinely creating a book at the moment using the service. The nearest equivalent in terms of quality would be Bob Books, however they STILL don't have a Mac client which is ridiculous really. The Blurb client is pretty thin (approx 40mb) and downloads so you can do everything offline before ordering it up... so far it is great but painstaking. The book I am making is of our Honeymoon trip to Nepal and I took a LOADS of photos so it might take me a little while.  However I can definitely see Blurb being used for many xmas presents this year - prices start at about £15 I think. Check it out!

Watch out for them others...