New York City Boots For my most recent trip to New York City, I left my DSLR intentionally at home and decided to either borrow my wife’s X-E1 or just use the iPhone.

My wife’s camera worked great. As far as the iPhone goes, I learned a few things too. While it can take nice photos and the processing options on it are almost unlimited too, it has one great disadvantage. While they advertise the smart phones as addressing a wide range of tasks, I felt like it fell short of that for one simple reason – battery life!

For my camera, I have several spare batteries and in the worse case, if I run out, it’s not a big deal other than not being able to take pictures (yes, it is a big deal and I make sure it never happens). Running out of the battery in the phone when used for multiple purposes is quite different – all of a sudden, your navigation is gone and  your emergency call impossible.

With some light navigation and very light photography I was down to 50% of power in 2 hours! After that, I holstered the phone leaving the rest just in case.

Yes, I know there are battery packs one can lug around to recharge the phone on the go but doesn’t that defeat the whole purpose of light weight mobility and not having a separate camera?

Back to a camera it is for me.

Have fun with your travel camera of choice!

Going back to the book for one more quote by Ansel Adams:

"In electronics, the technology we have now can do far more than film. As the world's silver resources are depleted, these new technologies are particularly important. ... Electronic photography will soon be superior to anything we have now. The first advance will be the exploration of existing negatives. I believe the electronic processes will enhance them. I could get superior prints from my negatives using electronics. Then the time will come when you will be able to make the entire photograph electronically."

Looking at Ansel Adams, The Photographs and The Man by Andrea G. Stillman (quote originally from Playboy, May 1983)

Everyone knows that the azimuth of the sunrise and sunset changes throughout the year. But did you ever try to see how much and how quickly it happens? It is rather amazing. Observing changes like this is one of the advantages of visiting the same locations over and over again. But I've said enough on that topic in my past posts (and will probably again).

Below, you can see two photographs of a sunset on the waterfront of Buffalo, NY. They're both taken at the Gallagher Pier and they are not even separated by too much time.

February 6 - Gallagher Pier Aligned with Sunset

Sunset at Gallagher Pier on February 6

April 29 - Gallagher Pier under Spring Sunset

Sunset at Gallagher Pier on April 29

I guess I should add two more to this collection, one on December 22, and one on June 21 to show the maximum difference between the two sunsets!

Have fun chasing sunsets wherever you are!