My wife and I are in Europe, enjoying an alleged river cruise from Prague to Berlin.  I say alleged cruise because the water level is so low that we might end up being bused from Dresden, our current stop, to further up the line.

I’ve added two new albums to my gallery, Europe! and Terezin.  Terezin was a Gestapo concentration camp in Northern (then) Czechoslovakia and has quite a storied history as it was a major component in the Nazi propaganda machine.  I don’t know that any more photos will go in the Terezin album, but I’m putting new images in the Europe! album almost daily and have some uploading right now.

The images are not as good as what I would normally post, I don’t have Photoshop with me so any corrective editing will take place after we return home in a week or so.  I’m using an Asus Chromebook, a great device for general surfing and downloading images from my cameras.  It’s crazy how light it is — it actually weighs less than my wife’s iPad! — and it’s only $200, so if it’s lost, stolen, or destroyed, I won’t cry too much compared to losing a $2,000 laptop.

Equipment!  About a year ago I acquired a Canon 6D full-frame DSLR.  Last year October I bought a used 17-40 EF.  And a month ago I bought a Panasonic Lumix LX-7.  This is my primary equipment.  I also have a EF 24-105, but it’s getting almost no use as the Lumix has a zoom that’s the equivalent of a 24-105.

There’s two great things about the Lumix.  First, Zeiss optics!  Even with the small sensor size, it still produces great images.  The sensor is the second great thing.  It’s oversize, covering a larger circle than the light circle produced by the lens.  The upshot is that you can change the aspect ratio of the images that it produces, it can make 1:1, 3:4, 2:3, and 16:9.  So you can shoot like a Haselblad, a TV, traditional 35mm, or HDTV!  I’ve been shooting 16:9 almost exclusively on this trip.

The Lumix has also been helpful as it will record video in HD and has stereo microphones.  I’ve used it to record two ship-board concerts, a Czech folk music performance and a performance by a string trio that performs for the Dresden Opera!  My intent is to strike the video and cut the audio in to MP3s for my future listening pleasure.

One important thing to note is that video takes A LOT of space on the Lumix!  I brought two 16 gig cards for the two cameras and have run out of space for the Lumix, so today I bought a 32 gig card today for it.

Well, I’ve got photos uploading that need to be tagged, so I’d better get back to it!