I ❤️ Kentucky

Carrie and I spent the weekend in Louisville, and the visit reinforced the fact that I love Kentucky like it was where I was born to live.  From the small-town feel of the big city you get in Louisville to the rolling bluegrass fields and horse ranches of the countryside it's an amazing place that reminds me of my real home in Portland, Oregon but adds so much charm and history, not to mention actual seasons.  And we can't forget the bourbon.  From great bourbon bars to the largest and best bourbon distillers in the world both Louisville and Lexington are amazing whiskey towns. 

Mar 3, 2017

Day one of our anniversary trip to Louisville was a long drive, where we checked into the historic Seelbach Hotel followed by a great bowl of Burgoo and cocktails at one of the best hotel bars in the country, The Old Seelbach Bar.

The Old Seelbach Bar features an amazing whiskey selection in addition to being one of the oldest bars on Louisville's Urban Bourbon tour. 

Traditional burgoo was made using whatever meats and vegetables were available—typically, venison, squirrel, opossum, raccoon or game birds, and was often associated with autumn and the harvest season. Today, local barbecue restaurants use a specific meat in their recipes, usually pork, chicken, or mutton, which, along with the spices used, creates a flavor unique to each restaurant.​

The Seelbach takes things to a new level featuring pork, rabbit, and venison in their burgoo. This combination of meats with the traditional okra, corn, and potatoes whose starches leech out to thicken this amazing soup create a concoction thick enough to stand your spoon up while still leaving an ample amount of broth to be soaked up by their amazing bourbon bread.​

The Old Seelbach Bar features an amazing burgoo

​March 4, 2017

​We started with a quiet morning and breakfast in bed from the amazing Gatsby's on Fourth Cafe in the hotel. We then took a drive through historic Louisville. We tried to get in for a tour of the Angels Envy distillery that opened across from Slugger Stadium since the last time we were in town, but tours were sold out for the day. Instead we took a drive out Old Bardstown Road through the historic neighborhoods East of Downtown known as The Highlands.

​We came back early afternoon and walked down the street from the Seelbach to another historic Louisville hotel, The Brown for lunch. Our favorite spot in the hotel, the Lobby Bar wasn't open yet but I got some pictures before heading down to the historic J. Graham's Cafe on the first floor.

The Lobby Bar at The Brown Hotel

Lobby and mezzanine from The Brown Hotel's front desk

​J. Graham's Cafe is the originator of the Hot Brown, the city's signature sandwich which was developed in the 1920's to satisfy late night diners looking for more glamorous than ham and eggs after attending the historic dinner dances hosted in the 4,300 sqft Crystal Ballroom which regularly accommodated more than 1,200 guests per night.

The J. Graham cafe in the Brown Hotel's daylight basement is one of Downtown Louisville's oldest

​We of course both chose the Hot Brown for our lunch, and as always were not disappointed. The amazing mornay sauce is as ever the centerpiece of this amazing open faced sandwich, combining Pecorino Romano cheese with a perfectly made cream sauce with just a hint of nutmeg to draw out the nutty flavors of the cheese. This sauce covers the base of Texas toast and Turkey before being sprinkled with more cheese and thrown under a broiler. The sandwich is then covered with 2 strips of bacon before being garnished and served. There is no better sandwich in my experience, and I've eaten some amazing sandwiches in my travels.

The world famous Hot Brown originated in this historic cafe

Mar 5, 2017

Wallace Station

Country Ham and Pimento cheese on wheat from Wallace Station is an amazingly well constructed sandwich.  The salt and sweet from the ham are the perfect foil for the creamy spice of the pimento cheese.  Pimento cheese is one of those southern creations we just don't find most places in Oregon unless we make it like Grandma did.

Wallace Station's Country Ham & Pimento cheese sandwich features a house made white cheddar pimento cheese. 

Carrie had the Turkey Rachel, Roast turkey, Russian dressing, Swiss cheese and creamy slaw.  A southern take on the Ruben with house made slaw that takes it to a whole new level.  She said it was a great sandwich, and her clean plate said she wasn't just being polite.

The Turkey Rachel from Wallace Station features an awesome house made slaw

Country Cat takes flight

Mar 2, 2017

Service was great when I seated myself, and my order was promptly taken at Country Cat's new second location in the E concourse at PDX just as you clear TSA hell.  Country Cat's great menu of southern flavored comfort food is pared down a bit for. this venue but loses none of it's quality.  I was served a wonderful plate of Beef Hash and my cocktail was delivered quickly.

From then on I became invisible.  40 minutes later waitress checked back for the first time to take my dish and ask if if I wanted another drink. After a 20 minute wait in a fairly empty restaurant my second cocktail is yet to arrive. After 35 minutes it finally got there, but that's not acceptable.

​The beef hash was amazing, with soft and tender beef mixed with crisped and deliciously crunchy potatoes and served beneath a perfectly poached egg. Hash is rarely done this well, and it would be worth a return trip of service were better.

I thought they were crazy until I had a chance to hear these headphones

When Aircom first told me about their new AiRFLOW headphones I was a bit skeptical.  In ear headphones have been designed the same basic way for quite a while, if this idea really worked why hasn't anyone tried it before? They were getting ready to launch a funding campaign on IndiGoGo and we're looking for my support. I was intrigued enough to back the project after watching their video and seeing their founder Ryan Tsui's passion for what they were doing.

The concept was radical but pretty easy to understand.  Instead of having a small speaker firing directly at your ear drum like every other in ear headphone on the market, they were trying to replicate the "airspace" of closed back over ear headphones by firing that same speaker into an airtube which would then funnel the sound into your ear.  I knew the concept of sound being enhanced by an airtube was viable because I had seen the concept used in microphones, but it still seemed a bit radical to me here.

After using them for a few weeks now, and letting friends and family use them I can tell you there is no question anymore.  The sound is so much cleaner and feels so full and rich that I actually can't stand to use my Apple Air·Pods after using these.  I'm sold on the concept and the final design.  Ryan and his team have a winner. 

What ever happened to that old Polaroid? Lomography is bringing instant cameras back with a difference

When I saw the Kickstarter campaign I had to do a double take.  Lomography was wanting to take their love of old fashioned photography a step further into the realm of instant cameras ala Polaroid with their new Automat camera.  They started it a year ago with the Lomo'Instant, but now were taking it into a new level.  Unlimited exposures on a single instant picture?  Bulb mode with up to 30 second exposures?  A lens cap with built in remote shutter control?  How far can we push an instant camera?

It turns out we can push it pretty far, and they did.  The Lomo'Instant Automat is a wonderful camera and a great piece of engineering.  With modular lenses adding wide-angle and fisheye capability along with the ability to add filters this is far from your Mom's old Polaroid.

The added ability to set the exposure length and take multiple exposures while tripod mounted gives you a lot of the creative flexibility of a medium format or SLR in an instant, something I never would have thought of.  

The camera uses physical film, so it isn't as flexible a medium to experiment with as digital can be, but there is something to be said for having that tangible record of the shot, and the serendipitous mistake that can create a one of a kind photo.

The Lomo'Instant Automat is available now from the Lomography online store for $179

So, I obviously had to eat while I was in Columbus right?

It just happened to be restaurant week in Columbus, Ohio this week while I was there with Carrie and we had the opportunity to sample some great food from some restaurants that we might not have otherwise tried.  We also tried some new pizza places and delivery services to get a better idea of the food options in a downtown area that is pretty quiet after dark.

Our first delivery option was pizza, and we decided to give OH Brew & Pizza a try.  It was a Friday night and ended up being the first night of OhioCon which just happened to be a couple blocks away from the restaurant we ordered from.  This led to a 90 minute delivery time, which was less than thrilling for us but the restaurant was good about keeping us informed.

The pizza itself was pretty good, with a crisp crust and just enough sauce to add good flavor without overwhelming the cheese and toppings.  Meat quantity and quality was great, with even coverage and solid flavor.  Overall quite good and we will order from them again.  We tried a couple of their side items, both loaded tots and fried crustables.  Both arrived a little cold and a lot greasy.  The fryer temperature was too low and they took too long to arrive for them to be any good to me.  We may try them again at the restaurant but won't order them out again.

The next night Carrie had a working dinner so I had dinner with my cousin and his wife at a popular Mexican restaurant near the OSU campus called MadMex.  I went with the carnitas burrito and I was pleased but not wowed.  After growing up with so much great authentic mexican food Midwest college town versions of Mexican food don't excite me.  There was ok flavor but no heat, and the citrus was nowhere to be tasted in a dish that normally would hinge on it being front and center.  Portions were huge and quality was decent but uninspiring.

The Carnitas Burrito is served with roasted green chilis inside, blue cornbread, pico and sweet-n-sour slaw on the side.

The only other real meal out that we had was our last night in town.  Quite a few restaurants had special three course menus at reduced prices to encourage people to try new places for restaurant week, so we gave BareBurger on High Street a try.  Located just across from the convention center at the beginning of Columbus' Short North arts district BareBurger has quickly made a name for themselves serving organic and free range menu items while being careful to cater to dietary and allergy restrictions.

While limited the 3 Course menu BareBurger featured for Restaurant Week actually presented quite a range of options

Since I cant have onions my first course was the Pickles & Slaw appetizer.  Featuring bread and butter, sour, garlic, and hot pickles along with a brussel sprout slaw it is actually a great sampler if you like pickles (which I do).  All of their pickles are made in house and are very good.  I love a good bread and butter pickle and BareBurgers offering reminded me quite a bit of the pickles my grandmother used to make when I was a kid.  The sour and garlic pickles were about average, and the hot pickles could have used more pepper and less garlic but were quite good as well.  In all it was a good start to the dinner.

The Pickle & Slaw sampler

For my second course I had the Wiki Wiki - a wild boar burger with duck bacon, gouda, and grilled pineapple on a brioche bun.  The boar was perfectly seasoned, allowing some of the gaminess of the meat to come through without allowing it to overpower the sandwich.  Their duck bacon is a treat.  Crisp and just the right amount of fatiness it adds just the right amount of flavor to the sandwich and is cut just right by the acid of the pineapple.  This is a well designed and balanced sandwich.

In all our dining experiences in Columbus were again pretty average.  Next trip I'll try to hit some of the more trendy spots in the Short North and Downtown, but we haven't had a bad meal in our visits yet.

Extremely different, in every way

This week I was provided an interesting contrast in two bluetooth headphone products, the long awaited Apple AirPods and the BB Air wireless headphones from German firm Blomm & Berger.

Most of us watched the introduction of the AirPods during the WWDC keynote this September and were surprised to see Apple miss their shipping date in October.  They finally started getting retail production going before the end of the year but are still on substantial back order.

The AirPods are small.  Very small.  Easy to lose small.  So easy to lose that Apple actually assumes that you will lose one of the pair and has listed the replacement cost ahead of time ($69 with AppleCare).  The whole pod is the size of a roll of dental floss.  Don't let size fool you though, there is some great tech inside that little pod.

At the opposite side of the spectrum are the BB Airs.  Big hearty headphones optimized for EDM and featuring both on-ear and over-ear earpads to allow for comfort and flexibility.  Custom manufactured in Europe for the German based company that has made a name for themselves sponsoring dance parties and FIFA matches.  They didn't have the money to startup manufacturing of the new product line so they turned to Kickstarter and Indigogo for support.

There isn't a lot to say about the sound quality of the AirPods.  They sound about the same as the EarPods that ship with every iPod and iPhone.  That in itself is pretty remarkable in true wireless headphones at this point but from an audio standpoint these aren't going to blow anyone out of the water. 

Blomm & Berger's BB Air's are another matter entirely when it comes to sound quality.  Even with the smaller pads placing them on your ears instead of over them these things sound very good.  When you increase the size of the soundstage by completely surrounding your ears with the larger ear pads you get one of the best wireless sound experiences we've encountered so far. 

As we all have heard, the Air⋅Pods have the same size and fit as the standard earpods, which quite a few people find uncomfortable.  I don't mind them usually for short to medium listening, but they aren't comfortable past the two hour mark for me.  This is fine, because battery life is only rated at three hours at 50% volume, so getting past two hours without needing to take them out to charge will be rare for most of us. 

In contrast, I found the BB Air with the over-ear pads to be comfortable throughout a five hour flight from Portland to Houston without any problems at all.  Usually even if they are not putting pressure on my ears (a rarity even for headphones designed to be over the ear given the size of my auditory appendages) my ears are feeling hot and uncomfortable by the three hour mark but somehow this didn't happen.

Overall I think both of these headphone devices are going to make buyers very happy.  Apple already is having a hard time keeping Air⋅Pods in stock and I don't see that changing until another true wireless competitors products catch up with marketing.  We'll have to wait and see if Blomm & Berger get enough marketing behind their own line to gain any major market share with what is a great product almost no one has heard of yet.

Serendipity ala Groupon brings Indian pizza home for dinner tonight

I was trying to decide what I wanted to do about dinner tonight when Groupon popped up telling me there was an offer nearby.  I pulled off of Cornell and up came an offer from Curry & Crust, an Indian restaurant with a twist...pizza(?!?) of all things.  I had seen the name driving past a few times but had never had a chance to stop before so I decided to give the offer a try. 

I got my large Butter Chicken Pizza to go and took it home. 

The pizza was topped with Home made sauce with  Onions, Green Peppers, Cheese,chicken  and topped with makhani sauce.  I have to say that first of all Butter Chicken is one of my favorite Indian dishes.  Putting it on top of pizza is a gimmick for sure, but one that works.  The flavor was smooth and creamy, with just enough curry and chili to balance the butter and make this a winner.  They got me there with the intrigue of pizza, but I'll be going back in to try a more traditional Indian meal with a variety of dishes after the flavor and quality of this pizza.

If you want a unique pizza experience or are just looking for great Indian food give Curry & Crust a try.

iPhone 7 plus Cases are taking over my life!

In less than a month I've already been sent eight cases to review for the iPhone 7 plus, and I can only guess how many more will come before the end of the year.  From clear TPU cases to leather and hard rubber durable portfolio cases they vary widely in material, level of protection, and price points but they will all provide some level of protection for your new phone. 

SaharaCase Protective Kit Bundle​

The SaharaCase bundle includes not only a clear TPU ​case but also comes with a tempered glass screen protector.  They even go so far as to provide a clip on guide that makes sure that the screen protector goes on straight and perfectly aligned.  While not the most durable material, the combination of the TPU and tempered glass on the screen makes for a pretty good solution for the $21.99 that Amazon is asking for the kit.  I actually received this before the phone launch and had it with me when I picked up my phone at the Apple Store and it impressed the sales staff at the store with how easy it made application of the screen protector.

​Encased iPhone 7 plus belt clip case

The iPhone 7 plus belt clip case from Encased is pretty impressive for the $11.80 that Amazon is charging.  The soft touch hard rubber case has a kickstand that pops out to prop your phone up on any solid surface, and the belt clip case is lined with micro fiber cloth to cushion and protect your screen when secured.  It wraps more than a quarter inch around the edge to ensure a good hold.  This is a good case for the money, I just don't like the length of the motion needed to slide the case in and out of the clip mechanism.

iPhone 7 Plus Wallet Card Case, ProCase

The iPhone 7 plus wallet card case from ProCase is as bare bones as a case can get.  Thin molded hard plastic with a slot to hold a single credit card or ID, this case offers the bare minimum of protection.  It will protect the metal of your phone but nothing else.  For $11.99 most buyers won't expect much more but compared to the belt clip case from encased this is almost over priced.

JACK SPADE Cell Phone Case for Apple iPhone 7 Plus - Fulton Tan / Navy

The Jack Spade color-block case is constructed of hard TPU wrapped in quality leather.  It adds a little bulk to the phone but is just thick enough that it sets out from the back far enough to protect the camera lens and sets off from the front to prevent the screen from hitting if it lands flat on the front.  It is decent quality leather and feels good in the hand.  I don't know if it feels worth the $39.99 price tag, but it is of a higher quality than the no-name brands. 

Fancy Fatboy Snack

Alright, Fatkids! My wife is a true "fatboy" at heart, and introduced me to a rad combo this weekend.  

Get you some Grand Margaux Brie cheese (Freddie's has a good selection) some "Effie's Oat Cakes" or "Lesley Stowe: Raincost Oat Crisps" and "Mike's Hot Honey"

Cake/Crisp, slice of Brie, drizzle of hot honey! Holy Crap! 

Pair with a big Red Blend or Whole cluster Pinot Noir?! Ohhhhh man! 

Get you some of that!!

Paradise in British Columbia

This summer, the family and I were fortunate enough to take a week long vacation to Hornby Island B.C. (Ohhhh Canadaaaa!) Hornby is a small gulf island between Vancouver Island and... well, Vancouver.  A picture will give more perspective.

Hornby island in the Strait of Georgia

From our starting point in Hillsboro, Or, it was a 7 hour drive to the border - 12 hours if you count awful traffic from Tacoma to well passed Seattle... While we are stuck in traffic, let's stop in the Emerald City and get some amazing food. It's Xiao Long Bao time! Fat Boys.. listen up!! Do you like amazing Asian soups? Do you like Dumplings? Of course you do! It's time for you to get to Din Tai Fung! There are two locations in the Seattle Metro, and 4 locations in Cali.

Din Tai Fung was founded in Taipei, Taiwan in 1958 as a cooking oil retail shop. In 1972, it transitioned into a full fledged restaurant specializing in soup dumplings and noodles, and now a 1 Michelin star, expanding dumpling empire.

Family style! So we tried almost everything

I highly recommend any of the Xiao Long Bao, and the shrimp and pork wontons.. The co-mingling of flavors in these dishes is other-worldly.. Fragrant, savory and the perfect amount of heat.. I'm still looking for an excuse to take the train up to Seattle just to eat there again. The University Village location comes complete with a beautiful outdoor commerce park... You'll have plenty of shopping time while you wait for a table at this establishment. WORTH IT!

After filling ourselves with MSG greatness - it was time to get back on the road. Since we weren't able to get a reservation on a mid day ferry from Vancouver, we decided to stay the night at the border and grab the 7:45am Ferry from Tsawassen (Pronounced Swasson). We stayed in Blaine, Wa which is just a cute little border town. You can see the border crosssing and Vancouver from the park across from our hotel..  

Looking at 2 different countries at sunset

Up dark an early to get across the border just in case there was a line... There was not! Needless to say we made it to our Ferry SUPER early.. This was my first time on a ship this big, or any ship in the ocean for that matter. My wife has been making this trip since she was little, so it was "old hat" for her.

My girls on the deck of "The Coastal Inspiration"  

Once we were done with this roughly 2 hour sailing, it was time for about another hour drive to Nanaimo. Here we would catch a much smaller cable ferry that would take us to Denman Island (about 10 minutes). Once we departed onto Denman island it was a short drive across the island to, you guessed it, one more ferry.. On this small cable ferry our final destination for the next several days can be seen.

Hornby Island is an absolute gem. Gorgeous scenery, interesting people and did I mention it's going to be between 75-80 degrees and sunny our whole stay? Yup! 

Angela's grandpa lives on the island with his girlfriend.. Yep, Girlfriend! John and Helen are THE BEST!! Since John lives with Helen down the road, he let's family come stay at his place... I was in love the minute I saw it. 

This is the back yard

This was the front yard! 

We drank, we ate very well, watched amazing sunsets every night... "Happy Hour" with John and Helen were definite highlights. 

We can't wait to go back and stay again.  

Grassy Point - Amazing sunsets to guzzle with the eyes

My daughter loving the beach at sunset

Angela and I having dinner at the Sea Breeze Dining hall. Great experience!! 

Nice day to hike Heliwell Provincial Park.. 

My most favorite pic of the trip. Waiting for our ferry on the way back home

It's Tuesday, so of course I found brunch on a downtown food truck in Columbus, OH

In the category of "it's a small world" we have today's lunch.I was out for a walk exploring downtown Columbus, Ohio and spotted a food truck in a parking lot down a side street.You know how I love food trucks, so I had to at least see what they had to offer.

Turns out the truck is owned and run by a Portland native who graduated from Western Culinary back in the last of the classes before it was sold to Le Cordon Blue.  He calls his truck "Broke Johnny's" and he just bought it a few weeks ago, but if he keeps serving breakfast like this he's going to have to change the name because he won't be broke for long.

I had a chance to try two items from his menu today his breakfast sandwich and what he tells me has become his signature dish, the Ham and Cheese waffle.

The breakfast sandwich from Broke Johnny's

​The breakfast sandwich is simple perfection. Thin sliced ham is thrown onto the flattop to heat up and get some caramelization. It's thrown onto toasted sourdough or marble rye, with a nice medium egg and American cheese. The beauty is in the quality of the ham and a perfectly cooked egg that is just a little runny making mayonnaise unnecessary.

Broke Johnny's Ham & Cheese Waffle  

The master stroke though was the Ham & Cheese Waffle.  A perfectly crisped waffle is spread with whipped butter then topped with cheese, chunks of fried ham, and then smothered in Johnny's bacon-bourbon sauce with big chunks of bacon.  The combination is truly amazing.  If I hadn't already had the breakfast sandwich he tells me that it's even better when you have a nice egg over the top of it (and what brunch isn't).

If you're in Columbus, track him down and give his brunch truck a try.   

A #Feast Grand Tasting in The Rain

It was a wet afternoon but that didn't stop hundreds of food lovers from around the country from converging on Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square once again for Bob Appetite's fifth annual FeastPDX Oregon Bounty Grand Tasting this weekend. 

This was out third year at the event, and the Second that Jimmie was able to join me.  Carrie ended up being out of town for work this weekend so it was just Jimmie, Angela, and me there this afternoon. 

The event was the usual blend of Pacific Northwest brewers, wineries, and food companies ranging from fruit growers to boutique sauce makers and creameries. 

After three consecutive years there were not a lot of surprises or even original ideas in presentation unfortunately for many of them.  There are only so many things to change in a crowded IPA marketplace to stand out, and not much Ponzi or Stoller can do to change the taste of 2014 and 2015 vintages of their Pinot Noir.  Similarly there's only so many things that you can do to highlight cheddar cheese on a cracker. 

There were however a few things that stood out this time around that you should be on the lookout for at local stores. 

Farmhouse Culture brought a line of Probiotic and Fermented foods that blow me away.  The Gut Shot probiotics had amazing flavor and were smooth as silk going down.  They will be available at Whole Foods and New Seasons stores in Oregon and Washington this week and at Whole Foods national stores soon. 

The folks at Stumptown were showing off coffee sodas along side their now legendary cold brew. 

The biggest new product surprise for us this year was actually a beverage that we were all suspicious of when we approached the booth.  When you think of Portland you think of a lot of things, but Portland Sangria is out to add something new to the conversation and we were amazed by this sangria in a can. 

A blend of Marionberry, red raspberry, and wine that could only be found in the Willamette Valley was a pleasant surprise and the two new flavors they had on tap to taste which they plan to release next year (lemon rosemary and blueberry basil) were even better.  I know it doesn't look like much, but you won't be sorry if you pick this up before the end of your day.

 The rest of the Grand Tasting was a lot of the same folks that we saw last year.  All of the major brewing company and winery folks were there.  It was a wet and wonderful afternoon. 

Milestone days

There are days that are important in life.  Days that matter.  Days that stick out in our past that we will never forget no matter what else we experience in the future.  Today didn't feel like one of those days when I woke up, but as I'm writing this I know that it is. 

Some of those important days in my past I had to endure rather than celebrate, like the first time I celebrated a birthday without my dad.  Some of them I didn't know were important milestones until weeks or months after they had passed like the day I met my amazing wife.  Rarely but thankfully some of them I have recognized as special as they were happening, and that meant I could capture them in detail and save a piece of that day forever.

As I sat with my wife and family watching my son enter the gym of his High School in his cap and gown this afternoon the importance of the day hit me full force.  I experienced something that connected me to what my parents felt 22 years ago when I made a similar journey into a similar gymnasium 60 miles from here.  I flashed back in that instant to the moment eleven years and fifty-one weeks ago when my son walked with my daughter out of their foster home to our car for their first overnight visit to our home.  I recalled all the visits to school principals, counsellors, IEP meetings, and case workers.  My son has come so far from the lonely broken little boy we adopted that some of those memories shocked me to think about. 

When we met with his first grade teacher we were told our son had severe learning issues and radical social interaction problems.  We were cautioned that he was more than 18 months behind his peers academically and he might never catch up in a traditional classroom environment.  Carrie and I agonized over what to do, but after a lot of prayer and counsel decided we would hold him back a year but not let them give up and move him into special education classes. 

There are many of those moments from my past I'm proud of, and many more I'm not.  There is nothing that gives me more pride than seeing what my boy was able to accomplish today.   It wasn't easy for him.  He had to work hard and find his own ways to make sense of the world around him.  He had to study harder than I did at his age because things didn't come as easily to him.  He never backed down.  Never quit trying.  Never let anyone tell him something was beyond his ability.  And today that little boy they said needed special education graduated with honors.  

So it's one of those days, and I couldn't be happier.

A tale of two very different cameras....

In August of last year a group of former Holga camera employees from Hong Kong decided to launch a Kickstarter campaign to launch a digital version of the beloved asian toy camera.  The original Holga debuted in 1982, and has since become a favorite of many artists due to the lack of complexity and flexibility.  Their goal was to get the $50,000 dollars needed to begin production, but demand was so great that they exceeded that goal in just 4 days.  Ultimately the project exceeded $300,000 and more than 2500 backers during the 60 days it was active on Kickstarter and they continue to get orders via Indiegogo here.

The camera is as low tech as a digital camera can get, owing very much to its roots as a toy camera.  With a manual shutter lever, exposure time is as flexible as possible and hard to gauge.  In addition, the only selections possible are a switch on the bottom to toggle between BW and Color modes, and the power dial on top allowing you to select between simulating 135 or 120 film.  You additionally have the option of attaching the flash or not via the hot shoe on top.  Everything else is done by feel and experience alone.  As you can see from the sample images below even with very little automatic control the camera provides decent quality and good dynamic range.

Picture of flowers taken with the Holga Digital

Picture of shelf with kickstarter rewards taken with Holga Digital and a flash

Lytro's Illium is by contrast one of the most advanced digital cameras ever made

The second camera I received is the Lytro Illum, an extremely advanced camera using what is called Light Field imaging to capture all of the available light in each pixel.  This not only provides superior dynamic range, but allows for what Lytro calls "living pictures" because by capturing all of the light in the lenses field of view you have the ability to change the depth of field and point of focus after acquiring the image data.  In addition, the technology allows the camera to export 3D images.  With manual focus, 8x optical zoom, and dynamic range equivalent to 80-3200ISO it is perhaps the most advanced still camera ever built with a single lens.

As you can see from the linked pictures below, you can share images that the viewer can choose a point of focus in on demand, a feature unique to Light Field technology.  At an MSRP of $1300 this is an amazingly expensive camera, but incredibly fun to use.  If it could shoot video as well it could be the perfect all around camera.  Fortunately, Lytro has moved on to trying to change cinematography and as result the camera can be found on Amazon for $387 dollars from some vendors.