Our last post of 2023! Another year has zoomed right past us! It’s always been a little challenging for me to write these posts at the end of the year, since we – routinely excepting those years in COVID – would have just returned from a long family holiday. I’d have a series of retrospection posts to write, and the numerous day by day itinerary activity posts would need checking and improvement too. Still, this blog is a form of family journaling for me, and despite the platform being a dying breed that few friends still continue on, it’s continued to be a labor of love for the more than 20 years I’ve written on it.
So, in 2023:
DJI Mini 3 Pro – win: 2023 was the year I finally got past the drone accident incidents from 8 years ago, and I resolved to sign up for workshops teaching attendees on how to safely fly one, and also acquire a enthusiast drone for the June trip to Hanoi where we’d be expecting plenty of opportunities to capture stunning aerial videos. The drone I settled on was a no-brainer: the DJI Mini 3 Pro, in that it ticked all the boxes I needed: including support for 4K resolution and obstacle avoidance, and under 250g weight. After several very conservative test flights in Singapore where I hope I didn’t break any laws governing drone usage here, the drone was included in our carry-on luggage to Hanoi.
And what an experience it was flying this little fellow there! I left Hanoi with several dozen usable videos taken at various times in Halong Bay, and also Van Long Natural Reserve. But I also carelessly misjudged the amount of available light and mounted a neutral density filter way in excess of what was required. And there was also that occasion at Cat Ba island where I’d traveled to the island only to realize the drone did not have a microSD card in it. Gosh – old age. Still, I’ve been really happy with the DJI Mini 3 Pro, and am considering locations that are drone-friendly for our June 2024 family vacation.
Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra – win: The S23 Ultra has continued the tradition of the Samsung Galaxy S series of flagship phones: stellar camera performance. After almost 2 years of going overseas and primarily taking smartphone pictures, I’m now sold on the concept: excepting challenging weather, the flagship smartphones are simply better all-rounder devices than traditional dedicated cameras, if not in photo-taking along usability aspects like handling. The S23 Ultra was used for most of the pictures during three overseas tips: Hanoi in June, Fukouoka-Matsue-Osaka in September, and Chubu-Kanto in December. Importantly, like the S21 Ultra in our 2022 trip to Kansai, the S23 Ultra this December with its IP68 rating was the one device I was absolutely confident of using when it was snowing or drizzling.
Also, I never thought I’d be using the optical 3X and 10X lenses on the S23 Ultra this much, but I did! Aside from being able to better frame subjects in my pictures, these focal lengths also had the characteristic of photo compression for selected subject types in the distance. I’m really looking forward to what Samsung is going to put into the S24 Ultra that’s due for release in a few months!
Sony A6600 – win, mostly: This one is tough to reflect fairly. Until the A6700 was released a few months ago, the A6600 was regarded as Sony’s top-APS-C mirrorless camera model. I thought really hard about whether to even start investing in yet another camera systems, and the decision largely rested on the practicalities of where it’d be likely used: for our year-end December vacation again in a country experiencing winter. Basically, in good light where minimal post-processing is needed for pictures, the S23 Ultra was by far way more convenient to use and was also producing pictures that required little additional work before I shared and/stored them as casual photos highlighting activities of our trips.
Shooting in snowy environments though is a different matter: today’s modern smartphones are able to better judge exposure and color temperature in such cases, but I did not want to leave it to chance. Moreover, the snow activity days meant I’d be shooting from a distance, and as good as the 10X zoom on the S23 Ultra was, it is no contest against a dedicated zoom lens on an ILC if I had to crop. But the weather in Japan this year was really cold on the snow activity days we had, and trying to pull out the A6600 out of my camera bag when it was snowing and freezing at -4 to -10 °C was a feat every time!
In terms of picture quality though, the A6600 is almost as good as the A73 – excepting in cases when I needed to do a good amount of post-processing. The limitations of the cropped sensor showed up quickly when attempting to fix issues with dynamic range: e.g. there was only so much improvement I could do with the Mt. Fuji photos taken at Chureito Pagoda where there was very harsh late afternoon sunlight, and I suspect the A73 would have surely given me better results. Still, my shoulders are glad that I was carrying the A6600 and a relatively compact Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 lens, compared to the far heavier A73 and 24-100 f4 lens. That was my default setup for 2018-2019, and 2022.
Xiaomi Mi Pad 6 – win, somewhat: This was also hard to reflect: despite already having almost five iPads at home already, I still picked this up in August. Largely because it was cheap, ticked all the feature boxes I needed, and supported the kind of multi-windows I want for my out of home blogging – something the iPads are really not good at. The only caveats of the Mi Pad 6 were its lack of mobile connectivity, and that the display screen was only so-so. But I was still pretty happy with it, and the Mi Pad 6 was my note taking device during my work trip to Fukuoka-Matsue-Osaka in September.
But the wife surprised me a few months later in early December with the Tab S9 below. The Samsung flagship tablet is superior to the Mi Pad 6 in every way, excepting perhaps the folio keyboard design. So, I now have two Android tablets with roughly similar feature sets at home, and I’m struggling to figure out differentiated use-cases for them! I did think about selling away the Mi Pad 6, but the resale value for Android tablets is really low. I’m still noting this purchase as a partial ‘win’ – only because of how cheap the Mi Pad 6 was!
Samsung Galaxy Tab S9 – win: After years of misses in birthday presents, the wife was thrilled that she got me a present this year that I was floored with. I picked up the Xiaomi Mi Pad 6 rather than the Tab S9 in August this year largely because of relative prices: the Tab S9 was almost twice as expensive as the Mi Pad 6, and the limited use cases I had for a Android Tablet was not going to justify that kind of expense difference. But here I have it now. The Tab S9 accompanied us on our Chubu-Kanto vacation in December, and I used it extensively to blog on the go over our 18 days. The Tab S9 is also in my sling bag whenever I’m out of home too, and I reckon that this tablet will continue to be my principal tablet in 2024.
That’s a wrap for 2024! In the coming year, I expect the tech toys I might be looking into would be a replacement ultraportable laptop for the coming to 5 year old Dell XPS 13, and perhaps a new foldable. Happy end of 2023!