The Cloud Gate – better known as the bean. Everyone who’s ever visited Chicago has posted a picture of this thing, BUT MINE HAS SNOW ON IT! OK, it’s not really new or creative, but I like the combination of snow on top, snow that has fallen to the ground around it and the reflection of the cityscape building lights behind me.
Picture taken with Canon Powershot SX130 IS, 5-60mm lens @ 7.13mm (40mm equivalent), f/3.5, 1/4 sec shutter, ISO 800.
Camera commentary: this is not the greatest camera from a noise standpoint. But, it’s got a long zoom range and was somewhat pocketable. I say “was” because since getting the Panasonic TS4 (current waterproof, kayaking camera) I haven’t really carried this one. The zoom range was nice, but the lens wasn’t that fast and the sensor noise wasn’t that impressive, so I ended up being disappointed with many of the pictures that came out of it.
It had a second flaw of having the play button on the back protruding too far and able to power the camera on, thus it would constantly get powered up in my backpack and have dead batteries by the time I wanted to use it. If I ever find reason to tote this camera around again, I might ‘fix’ this by gluing a small pastic ring around the button.
