To Buy or Not to Buy

That is the question in todays much- anticipated second-ever photography related blog. I suppose this will be an exercise in trying to justify buying a new toy. It will be interesting really. I promise. You can even vote at the end.

After revolutionizing the world of photography 6 months ago with a small camera (see picture below) that can take DSLR quality pictures (and HD video for that matter) ....... Olympus is about to release the E-P2...

I was so sorely tempted to buy the E-P1, and the E-P2 seems to have addressed the (very few) reservations I had about buying the E-P1. Namely slowish autofocus and no viewfinder. Aside from that....

Why is it better than my camera? I'm glad you asked.

Reason #1

It's smaller. Carrying heavy cameras is lame. The only reason anyone buys point and shoot cameras is that they're convenient, portable (and cheap I guess) . The reason you don't carry that DSLR you own everywhere is because it's not. I actually do carry mine everywhere... being one of the smaller SLRs...with the tiny lens below...it's quite portable. Still.....this new camera is 30% lighter and and 35% smaller than even my compact set up.

Reason #2

It's low light performance is much better than mine. Don't know what that means? Basically...if there's not enough light to take a nice picture...you have to make your camera really sensitive to light (higher ISO numbers) , so you can take a picture with less light. However, when it's really sensitive, it makes mistakes.

Some cameras are better than others. This camera...being about 3 years newer than mine does a better job.

Not only can it be set 4 times more sensitive than mine....it can take the same quality picture with about half the light. Which means I can take the same quality picture inside a cathedral or something with half the light that I need with my older camera.

Or because I can make it more sensitive...I can get a picture that would be totally blurry with my old camera, or require a tripod (speaking of lame...who likes lugging a tripod everywhere?)

Reason #3

HD Video! My camera can't take video. This one can.

In HD. Enough Said. How cool would it be to be able to take video with the worlds best optical lenses from Zeiss, Leica, Voigtlander...not to mention my Zuikos....this camera can accept all of these lenses (manually focused) (plus Nikon Canon, Minolta and Pentax if you so chose). Mine can't.

Plus, this camera can accept external microphones...so

you don't pick up the annoying lens zooming sounds or anything.

Having a video record of my life in Korea or Seo-Yeong being young and cute is a cool thing for sure...

As an aside...this camera is better than a camcorder too, cause I can choose what's in focus and what's blurry instead of just having everything annoyingly in focus....

Reason #4

More Megapixels. Not really that important. But slight improvements mean I could print a picture of the same quality about 20% bigger with the new camera than with the old....

I think that about wraps it up....

Oh, and that view

finder sitting on top of the camera removable and adjustable...it can pop up to 90degrees like a periscope if I was shooting macro shots or somehing....

Let me know... Do you think it's a compelling case?

Reasons why it is not better include:

1) I have to use an adapter for my current set of Olympus lenses.

2) Autofocus is slower than my current camera...so for moving animals or sports or running kids, my current camera would be better.

3) If I use big lenses, the smallness factor of the camera is kind of irrelevant.

4) Adding a viewfinder (you can see in the picture) makes it significantly larger.

5) No pop-up flash. I don't really care. But some people might.

You know you've been in Korea too long when....

You look in the mirror and are surprised to see a Caucasian face staring back at you. Seriously....I've been surprised a couple times now... I dunno.... I guess your body adapts it's self image or something....so that in my mind's eye I look like everyone else here....maybe if you never see white people?

On a different note...the insurance scam..... I complained some more to my boss....and she went back to complain to the government more....and it's all very complicated and they couldn't even explain it to me, so just forget about it...but long and short of it is I have to pay like $200 instead of $700....so that's better. In the end I could probably fight that too.....after much thought and listening to Korean conversations it seems that my boss was trying to cheat a bit, to save money (she pays half of the premiums) and got caught and is getting punished. Apparently this applies to a lot of schools.....anyways...so when it boils down to it, it was my bosses fault, trying to save money and telling me that setup was fine....and if I got a lawyer to go after my boss...I could probably not pay anything at all...but it's not really worth it for $200 is it?

Had Ppeppero day again....the polar opposite of our November 11th holiday....that was a blast.

Been thinking a lot about Canada lately....I want to go home for Christmas....not that I'm not happy here....it's really nice...comfortable...paid well...like the job....but kinda restless....I dunno....like I'm not gonna find out how I like doing photography for a job until I get to Canada....I'm not going to find out any more answers about my future with Jenny until we see how it goes in Canada....lots of things that I'm just waiting for....so kinda restless if that makes sense.

I'm getting good at Starcraft now...haha....a bit of an addict now....we have had some fierce battles with Kristy and Rene and the new teacher at Princeton (Kyle's old school) Jack..from England....

If you hadn't heard I've been teaching Jenny to bake...haha....they don't really do that here...so brownies were mind-boggling....that's been fun and Jenny is so cute, having so much fun....being super depressed when one batch was like a rock... :)

Seo-Yeong was here and I thought it would be fun for them to bake together...and it was...Seo-Yeong insisted on adding animal crackers.....

Someone is going to feel the Wrath of Matt

Greetings and salutations on what so far (one hour in) has been the best day of an otherwise tragic week.....where to start where to start.....

There was another letter writing incident and follow up clash at work.....(not that interesting...and eclipsed in severity by the last incident)

If you didn't hear....my stupid Travel insurance company denied my wisdom tooth surgery claim which I am fighting and which I won't bore you with (agai

n because it is eclipsed in severity by what comes next) but puts me out $300 which is super lame......

Anyways, the main story....my boss sat me down and said..."I have some bad news.....". Long and short of it is....

-because of my stupid travel insurance (see above), I declined to have Korean Health Insurance when I came last year (August 2008)

-Every English teacher gets a pension from the government monthly....about $100/month...and at the end of your contract you collect that before going home....so that's a lot of money over two years right?

So, my boss sits me down and says the government called and told her I can't have a pension if I don't have health insurance....even though this has been the situation since day 1...

So they want me to pay retroactively for the last 16months

....and...I don't have a number yet but probably in the neighbourhood of $800. For no reason. Either the government made a mistake and allowed this setup, or my boss made a mistake....either way there's NO WAY I should be out on money on this.

So let me add this up for ya...

Useless Canadian Insurance 16months $300

Wisdom Tooth Surgery $300

Government wants $800

Approximate Total $1400....and for what?? Absolutely !@!%$%^ diddly squat.

Like I said....someone is going to feel the wrath of Matt. Soon. And it's gonna hurt.

Korea has professional hockey (and Swine Flu part II)

So this weekend, I made the best discovery ever. Korea has a professional ice hockey team. Actually more than one....in the Asia league, which has teams from Japan, Korea and China. We watched Anyang play a team from Japan....

Anyang is were Jenny used to live and where Seo-Yeong still lives. Hockey is starting to grow over here. Last year they televised Vancouver-Chicago in the playoffs on National TV and this year there's some of Anyang's games on TV as well. I was on TV this weekend too. Haha.

Anyway, Jenny and Seo-Yeong got their first taste of live hockey!

It was so much fun we went back for another game the next night.

Ah Polar Bears...Some of us may have cried when these Polar Bears had to go on the ice at the end of the game instead of answering us when we were calling them...

I don't know if any of you remember Jim Paek - the first Korean to play NHL hockey back with Mario Lemieux's championship Penguins in the early 90's...but anyway, his hockey store is next to the arena...so not only did I find an ice hockey team I found an ice hockey store....basically I rock.

The hockey was quite high quality...not NHL or AHL or even as good as ECHL (like the Victoria Salmon Kings) but the best 3 or 4 players could play in that league I think....so not a terrible level either. There was three Canadians and an American on our team, and the rest Korean.

Found out Esa Tikkanen played on the team after his NHL days were done. Haha.

SWINE FLU PART II

Swine flu part II is pretty short...um....the guy that I work with Chad...his girlfriend has swine flu. And he's still visiting her. Seems crazy....trying to decide if I would be doing that. Feel free to tell me I'm crazy and that I would...would you visit your significant other during their 5 days of contagiousness? Anyway, I hope I don't get it. And one of Jenny's coworker's kids has it too. So she's hoping not to get it. At Seo-Yeong's kindergarten they stand at the door with thermometers checking temperatures before they let you in....it's pretty intense.....