Sidetracked in Seattle

We flew to Seattle in January to visit Rande’s family. It gave me a chance to learn my new compact digital camera, a Sony RX100. I wanted a good pocket camera to use when it’s inconvenient to carry a full-sized digital SLR and to be less conspicuous in crowded locations. I also wanted a camera that would fit in a compact housing for underwater photography. The RX100 is a photo-enthusiast’s compact camera (more details at the end). 

Main entrance to the Pike Place Market

Pike Place Market

The Pike Place Market is a good proxy for colorful, crowded indoor markets in foreign countries. With the large, sharp LCD display, I could hold the camera over my head and see to shoot.

The telephoto is good for candid shots.

Rande (right) and her sister buying seafood

And the colors and details are fantastic.

Seattle Aquarium

The aquarium is no replacement for underwater photography, but it was fun to see species I haven't seen in a long time.

Canary rockfish (Sebastes pinniger)

Brown rockfish (Sebastes auriculatus)

Lingcod (Ophiodon elongatus) – this is the classic pose in the wild

Bay pipefish (Sygnanthus leptorhynchus) in eelgrass (Zostera sp.)

North Pacific giant octopus (Enteroctopus dolfleini) – arguably the largest octopus (link)

Moon jelly (Aurelia aurita) – the aquarium has an amazing moon jelly display; they glow when exposed to UV light

The Sony RX100 has a 1-inch, 20 MP CMOS sensor; a Carl Zeiss 28-100 mm (35mm equivalent) lens; a 3-inch LCD display; shoots images in RAW; and has image stabilization (specs and reviews  here and here). It also shoots 1080i video and can take 17 MP images while shooting video (specs and reviews here and here). The images in this post were taken handheld with available light in RAW and processed in Adobe © Lightroom.