tubbiness in tahoe

I spent this weekend in a cabin in Tahoe with some friends, some old and some new. Sleeping on a couch in a cabin was a nice change from sleeping on the ground in a tent like I’ve been doing for the past few weekends.

Another change was the camera I brought this weekend. I recently bought a micro four thirds camera. As you can see, it’s a lot smaller than my SLR. I bought a small pancake prime lens to go along with it. The combination fits in my pocket if I wear somewhat fatty pants– luckily I’m a fatty who wears fatty pants pretty often.

The lens that I bought has a maximum aperture of f/2.5– which comes in handy when shooting indoors without flash. I’m pretty happy with the sharpness of the lens and to my eyes the bokeh (background blurring) is okay.

The camera shoots in raw format and there’s a decent amount of dynamic range. The sun was directly behind us for this shot, but there’s a good enough range to bring the faces back in Lightroom without blowing out the sky too badly.

I’m pretty happy with the sharpness of the lens– it seems to capture a good amount of detail.

This post is called ‘tubbiness in tahoe’ because we spent a good portion of the weekend eating. Breakfast was two types of scrambled eggs with bacon and pancakes.

Dinner was korean barbecue beef and pork with grilled veggies.

The grill wasn’t really cooperating, so we ended up cooking the pork inside.

We caught a good number of crawfish.

Which Lisa made a very tasty crawfish bisque out of. I’ve had crawfish bisque in New Orleans– I think this was better.

During the day we went for a short hike at Emerald Bay.

I had been out here just three weeks earlier, but since then it had snowed. The snow adds a nice atmosphere to an area that’s already pretty nice.

I hiked in my Vibram five fingers. My toes were cold when hiking in the snow, but they warmed up pretty quickly when I was back on dry ground.

We hiked up to lower eagle falls. The trail was icy and slippery in some parts.

Here’s a group shot at the bridge below Lower Eagle Falls.

We had a snowball war near the waterfall.

So anyways, going back to the camera. It was a decent deal at $200, plus $200 for the lens. The camera’s ISO performance is okay– not great, but coupled with the relatively fast lens it’s usable indoors in somewhat low light without flash. It fits in my (fatty pants) pocket. The lens is a great focal length for me, relatively wide, which I like. So overall I’m pretty happy with the camera.

It actually sounds like a great date camera– good enough in low light to take a picture during a candle lit dinner at a fancy schmancy restaurant of both the tasty food and the pretty lady sitting across the table. Bwahaha that situation pretty much never happens in my life, so now that I think about it, maybe $400 for a camera I won’t use all that often is kind of expensive…

Anyways, it was a good relaxing weekend, and a good way to unwind after three straight weeks of hiking and camping.

Things I’m thankful for:

• Friends, both old and new
• Food
• Fun times with good food and good friends