Marble Fish, Chinatown Center – Austin, Texas
I’m usually pretty good with schedules. I get to places on time, perhaps even a few minutes early. My mix of low and high-tech tools generally work. So why did I make the same silly mistake two years in a row?
I went over to the Chinatown Center, an Asian strip mall in North Austin, for the annual Chinese New Year’s festivities. I was expecting a crowed — there was nobody there. I was a week early — like last year. Maybe I made the mistake because the actual Chinese New Year was that weekend.
Yeah, I brought my two Olympus Pens, but as expected, I had my newest camera with me, the XZ-1. This high-end Olympus point and shoot is in full test mode, my break-in period to see what it can do. After picking up two Vietnamese Sandwiches for the family, I did a quick pre-Chinese New Year shoot. After all I wanted some themed material to post on my mostlyfotos blog.
Chūnlián, MT Supermarket – Austin, Texas
I tested the XZ-1’s telephoto at maximum to get some compression on the marble fish. I shot macros inside the MT Market to capture some Asian decorations. Finally, a sort of long exposure (1/2 second was the longest I can manage during the day) on a mini-waterfall. As much as I love prime lenses, I do admit having a zoom makes things easier. One camera and one lens with an endless supply of compositions. The f1.8 to f2.5 zoom lens on this puppy makes it tremendously more enjoyable than the typical f3.5 to f5.6 kit zoom.
I wrote a popular post on the 2012 Chinese New Year in Austin, I’m assuming this year’s show will be similar. If you live in the Austin area, consider going the festivities this Saturday, February 16th at 10am. I should be there with my mix of cameras. This year’s challenge, do something different with a new combination of cameras and lenses.
Discount Buddhas, MT Supermarket – Austin, Texas
Happy Cats, MT Supermarket – Austin, Texas
Mini Waterfall, MT Supermarket – Austin, Texas
Click on the photographs to see a larger image and hover over the photos to see the exposure detail.
atmtx photo blog 
The color is gorgeous on the fish as well. I like the water globes. I love those cats – have no idea what they mean but I always have a chuckle when I see them in the Chinese restaurants. There is a large market here where I live where they just let me run amuck with the camera. I like shooting the canned goods and the candies. Mmmm, White Jelly Fungus 😉
Thank you, Libby. It’s certainly fun to go to mysterious places in your own back yard.
For having missed the event, you certainly came up with some really great images!
Thank you, Marilyn. Luckily I was just early. I’m planning to go this weekend. I’ll see if I get anything interesting.
As always, you are brightening my cold and gray michigan winter! My fav is definitely the first one (fish picture). The mini waterfall is cool, but I have a hard time to get a sense of scale for it. I wonder about applying one of those toy filters to it……..To answer to one of your previous pages, I am guilty of having never really explored the menus on top of your blog. Just did not know you had another blog. Problem fixed, am subscribed now. This P&S seems to be a great value. Might be a good option for me to replace my old pana P&S. Unless Pana keeps dropping its LX7 price…..