{"id":351,"date":"2025-03-12T00:47:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T00:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.thisisthenew.me\/?page_id=351"},"modified":"2025-03-14T01:48:20","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T01:48:20","slug":"birmingham-the-night-before-ruby","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/alpha.thisisthenew.me\/index.php\/birmingham-the-night-before-ruby\/","title":{"rendered":"Birmingham: The night before…"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Weeks before my trip to Birmingham, I started buying cameras. A lot of cameras. If I wanted to make some grand statement about consumerism, I\u2019d say wealth brings both the opportunity and the burden of trying and buying new things. And I do judge myself for it, sometimes. I know I can only acquire things like this because of how much I work, but that knowledge doesn\u2019t stop the vague guilt from creeping in. It\u2019s something to process. Something to ponder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of these cameras arrived the day before my trip. Obviously, I had to take them with me. But I also knew that if I didn\u2019t at least test<\/em> them beforehand, I\u2019d be setting myself up for disaster. It had already been a long day, and I had a late-night meeting ahead of me. Traffic was going to be dreadful, so I drove to a park near my client\u2019s place an hour early and started taking pictures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The upside of a new camera on a trip is that you\u2019re forced to actually learn how to use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, my travel companions were the DxO One<\/strong> and the Pentax Q7<\/strong>. Ken Rockwell has a solid review of the DxO One<\/a><\/strong>, if you want the details. As for the Pentax Q7, it belongs to that wonderful category of old, quirky cameras you can sometimes find for an almost laughably low price. Here\u2019s a great piece<\/a> on why it\u2019s still relevant today.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both cameras defy convention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DxO One is a fascinating \u201cB-shooter.\u201d It could never<\/em> be your main camera\u2014unless you\u2019re a true weirdo, totally committed to the bit. The Pentax Q7, on the other hand, is a strange little pinch hitter. It\u2019s tiny enough to go anywhere, and its lenses actually deliver. The problem? Its LCD screen. Completely useless in bright sunlight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, they turned out to be great strangers to travel with. Every photo in my Birmingham series<\/a><\/strong> was shot with the DxO One or the Pentax Q7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next up: Trains Before Planes.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Weeks before my trip to Birmingham, I started buying cameras. A lot of cameras. If I wanted to make some grand statement about consumerism, I\u2019d say wealth brings both the opportunity and the burden of trying and buying new things. And I do judge myself for it, sometimes. I know I can only acquire things […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":359,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-351","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.thisisthenew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.thisisthenew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.thisisthenew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.thisisthenew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.thisisthenew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.thisisthenew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":401,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.thisisthenew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/351\/revisions\/401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alpha.thisisthenew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alpha.thisisthenew.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}