Prince Edward Island with the X100T

I went a little mad before leaving for our summer vacation this year and bought a Fujifilm X100T. I liked the idea of having a very compact camera I could carry everywhere and that was capable of producing excellent images. I still love my X-E1 and suite of lenses but, as light as they are, there are times when I'd like to walk around with even less.

I was also secretly looking forward to the discipline of using nothing but the X100T's fixed 23mm lens. I have a (bad?) habit of changing lenses fairly often when I'm out with my camera, depending on the effect that I'm after. After being made aware of this by another photographer I began to wonder if all that lens-changing might be a distraction from concentrating on the subject, rather than on the equipment. But would I be up to the task of working with just one optic? (Yes, I could have accomplished the same thing by using my X-E1 with one lens but I was dying to get my hands on the beautiful X100T. There, I've said it.)

It was time to find out. I forked over the money at the store I patronize and told myself I had 15 days to return the camera if buyer's remorse set in. I packed both cameras, just in case, and set out with the family.

And I needn't have worried. During the week we spent on beautiful Prince Edward Island on Canada's Atlantic coast I never felt the need to reach for the X-E1 and lenses. Oh sure, there were times when I would have liked to go wide with my 14mm or long with the 55-200mm zoom, but I never felt that I was missing a crucial element for a shot. Instead, I re-learned to "zoom with my feet" and became very familiar with a particular angle of view. In many ways, the simplified approach turned out to be freeing, not limiting.

And the buyer's remorse? No sign of it.

The view from the tower (black and white)

A large part of the enjoyment of travel is the chance to see different things. But when you're visiting a place that you know relatively well, the enjoyment often comes from seeing things differently.

That was the case for me when I visited Toronto recently with my younger son. Although I haven't lived there in a long time and the city has changed a lot, it's still a familiar setting for me so it was time to find a different vantage point. Off to the CN Tower we went while the sun was low in the sky, to make sure we'd have some nice sidelight. The Tower is a great location to take in a 360-degree panorama of the GTA, what's left of Toronto's lakefront and an expanse of Lake Ontario.

As great as the view is, however, actually shooting from inside the structure is not easy. (And even if I were ready to do the EdgeWalk around the outside, carrying a camera is prohibited.) You are either behind thick glass windows that are not very clean or heavy wire mesh that makes a clear shot impossible. I decided to go with a longer lens to minimize the impact of dirty streaks and wires. The 18-55mm and 55-200mm zooms helped with framing shots carefully and I was surprised by how well the images held up through the glare and dirt.

See for yourself. I'll post some colour shots next time.