Two carousels

Red swirl, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Gray swirl, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Today it was raining, temperature about +1 °C, and the snow was melting fast. And it was gray. I tried to find some things to take photographs of, but it was hard to get motivated. But here is a pair of photos, and this time my intention was to make them into a pair. This required quite a few shots, but the result is not too bad.

Underwhelming images

Skier in fog, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Water drops on steel, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Path, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

This was not only a clouded day, but there was also fog, so it was doubly lackluster for taking photographs. On the other hand, there is at least for me a kind of fascination with this kind of images. Here are three such ones from today - even the "blue moment" at the end of the day was modest. The images may not rock, but there is some good also in blandness.

Lens problems with the Panasonic LX3 - should I buy another just in case?

Red shack, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Upside down in a drop, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Tree shapes, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

My LX3 is having more and more problems. Previously, memory cards gave occasionally write errors, which were fortunately curable by reinserting the card. And since going back to shooting jpeg instead of RAW+jpeg I haven't had any problems, so this may be a software problem instead of hardware.

Also, I have noticed that the zoom is no longer smooth, there is a short of abrupt jerk somewhere in the middle of the range. This problem appeared also a couple of weeks ago.

Today new problems appeared. I was out at a playground with the chilren, and took a few photographs of the foggy landscape. But when shutting the camera, the lens didn't retract properlly all the way but instead stuck about 3 mm outside the barrel. I switched the camera on again, and then off, and the same thing happened. Then when I switched the camera on again, it didn't start at all but instead gave instructions to switch the camera off and on again. After a few cycles of this, the camera finally agreed to retract the lens.

At home, when I tried the camera again, it worked as it used to, including that small jerk in the zoom when extending the lens.

But later today I ran into another problem. When switching on the camera, the lens extended, retracted, extended again, and there was a notice on the screen: "system error (zoom)". After shutting the camera (the lens retracted ok) and switching it on again, there was a similar kind of extent-retract cycle, but then the camera started to function properly once again.

The LX3 has been showing problems almost daily now, so I'm afraid it soon needs repair. I have taken slightly under 29,000 photographs with it, so perhaps 30,000 photographs is a kind of limit in the durability. (As in cars, 3 years or 150,000 kilometers...) But fortunately I should be covered by the warranty if the camera soon breaks.

I have been thinking whether I should buy another camera to supplement the LX3. My Ixus 400 is broken (E18 error, stuck lens) and I'm not willing to start shooting film with the Minolta XG-1. And my Nokia E90 cameraphone is probably one of the worst cameras ever in terms of usability.

But what choices are there? The G10 is a possibility, but it is bigger, and there is an f/2.8 lens instead of f/2.0 and more noise that on the LX3. The new Fuji F200 EXR has an interesting sensor, but no manual focusing, and typical Fuji usability problems, such as no histogram display.

Another choice would be the Panasonic G1, but I'm not interested in bigger cameras. Also, I would need several lenses to cover my needs, and currently there are limited choices in the selection. And of course there is no lens giving the same capabilities as on the LX3, from 1 cm macro photography to 24 mm wide landscape photography.

So, buy another LX3 just in case? This seems to be the best choice at the moment, although I would need to pay more that I paid originally for the LX3. (The discount price of 399 euro was a great deal.)

The photographs are from today, showing the wet and foggy/clouded landscape.