Clematis

I love seeing the garden come alive each Spring, even if I'm not around to see that much of it.

Once again I'm doing a lot of business travel and blipping is just one of the things that has fallen by the wayside in what feels like it is going to be a year of changes. Some of those are camera related...

I've already got a lot of travel plans in the pipeline, both work and pleasure. Some of those involve returning to old haunts like Ireland and the Netherlands, some involve spending more time in places I've spent very little time in, like Denmark, and some will involve whole new experiences, like my trip to speak at a conference in Australia this August.

I've never really thought of myself as a travel photographer, but I do want to make the most of those trips from a photographic perspective and that has made me reassess a few things.

I'v loved my D-LUx and LX3 but they have both had a tough life and bear a lot of scars. Since getting a free upgrade to a Galaxy S4, with an S5 due soon I've realised that more and more often I'm reaching for my phone to take shots like this one, rather than the D-Lux. So if a pocketable camera is to earn its keep it has to do things the phone can't. With the D-Lux I'm finding that differential is being eroded. It isn't stellar in lowlight, has a limited zoom and IQ is by modern standards good rather than excellent. After all this is a camera that came out in 2008.

Meanwhile the Pentax DSLR slumbers in the lumber room just because it is too cumbersome to use a lot of the time.

So what to do? Well the obvious replacement for the D-Lux is the Sony RX100 so I'm playing wait and see on how the imminent launch of the RX100 III will impact prices of the earlier versions. TBH I like the appeal of the original minimalist model with no hot shoe or tiltable screen to get damaged ina pocket.

But my big decision has been to go for an end of line Fujifilm XE-1. More on that when it gets delivered.....