Life Without my DSLR, Part 1 - NYC Daytime Landscapes

Let me just start by saying that I missed my poor camera every moment of this trip. Don't get me wrong, the Canon point-and-shoot I purchased is great. It's just that I had a few issues with it:

1) The flash kept popping up, which was annoying - but I figured out how to keep it off.

2) The settings were not fun to modify (white balance, ISO, etc.) - it just wasn't as easy.

3) I missed the ability to use my specialized lenses. I particularly hated not being able to use an F-stop greater than 4.5.

4) Not having the option to shoot in RAW really threw me.

Having said that, there were a few advantages:

1) I didn't hurt my back or shoulders as a result of lugging around my heavy gear.

2) I could take candid pictures and be subtle about it (especially where my sister was concerned).

So, what do the pictures look like? Not bad, considering the season. Here are some examples:



The second picture (without the ducks) is the winter version of:



Let's face it, I like the fall picture far, far better. But, I didn't mind the winter ones, especially the ones with ice.

Some observations:

1) I needed to tweak the ISO to 200, but I kept the white balance to Auto. Shade didn't work very well.

2) I needed to darken every single shot in Aperture.

3) I found these pictures very gloomy, but the park was hardly colorful that day, so it fit the mood.

4) I could see myself using this camera for daytime shots such as these - simple landscapes. This isn't the case for my other NYC shots, though, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

So to summarize, I did the best I could by modifying as many settings as possible to ensure I had the best results.

Parts 2 and 3 will cover my lessons learned with taking pictures using this camera at night, and taking shots of my sister during the day and at night. Till tomorrow!