This year has been one of massive change and random moments so I thought I’d highlight some of the high points. Rather than sit here and write, I thought I’d let the moblogs do the bulk of the talking.

January - We started the year as we ended it, with lots and lots of snow

February - We celebrated 200 episodes of the Boagworld.com podcast with a mammoth live stream from The Barn

March - We met a dood from Boyzone

March - I finally made the switch!

June - We reunited with old friends from Toronto and Belgium

June - I married the love of my life

June - we became parents-to-be

November - I did my first conference speaking gig

November - I rocked a tux at my first black-tie dinner

December - At the ripe old age of 29, we got our first car!

December - The snow & ice descended to usher out 2010

The last digital camera I owned was a Canon Ixus 40 which was a nifty little thing but wasn’t much more than a regular point & shoot. The LX3 is still a compact, but is nestled at the top end and is about as high as you’d want before making the leap to a DSLR.

The look and feel is gorgeous, the metal body has a retro feel to it and it’s got a wide angle Leica lens which can shoot in a few different formats, my favourite is definitely the 16:9. The one downside is that there’s a very small zoom on the lens which is only useful for framing, other than that, I’m a big fan so I thought I’d share some sample shots I took before the wedding and on the honeymoon. All of these are unedited and straight from the camera.

I definitely prefer portrait photography to be in black & white and the LX3 has a very nice dynamic B&W mode which ups the contrast for a more moody shot.

There’s tons of settings to mess about with the exposure, as well as the ability to shoot in RAW mode to capture all that detail. this 10mp long exposure is best viewed LARGE!

Colour reproduction is great, and very accurate to the scene

And the macro mode is fantastic for those close ups

All in all, I love the camera and I’m hoping to take it with me quite often to capture some great shots. I might even invest some money as you can trick it out quite a bit with accessories!