Travels through British Columbia to The Rockies.

We flew into Vancouver 3 hours late on Friday and then found out the vehicle we had booked was barely big enough for the four of us. Fortunately after an overnight stop in Vancouver we have been able to swap it for a larger version and we are all happy bunnies now

We spent much of Saturday on a steady run to Kelowna. This a pretty large and sprawling town in the Okanagan district of BC. The district is noted for its wine production, and we had booked into a Bed & Breakfast establishment just out of the town called The Grapevine. Now I have to tell you that the standard of this place is higher than any B&B I have ever stayed in, and we have enjoyed 2 nights with 2 fantastic gourmet breakfasts at the Grapevine.

This is a shot of our Bedroom, before we had messed it up I hasten to add. The shot was taken without flash in Raw and then corrected for WB



and here is a shot of the four of us chilling on the patio on our first night there



Thats me on the right with my wife Kathy and our friends Paul & Denise to the left. The camera was put on the delayed action setting and sat on a suitable solid object. Again no flash and in this case no other adjustments.

I should point out at this stage, that I am using an Olympus E-P1, that Olympus have kindly loaned me (Well Ian pulled a few strings) for the duration of my holiday. The idea is to use the camera in the normal way one does on holiday, evaluate it and then post a gallery of photos on the Four Thirds User site, as I mentioned HERE The camera has no flash, so I won't be using one at all, and there is no optical viewfinder, only a large 3" screen. It has a regular four thirds sensor and plenty of whistles and bells which make it a pretty sophisticated compact camera that thinks its a dSLR Anyway more about the camera later as I get chance to use it. Photo opportunities have been limited so far, due to traveling over the last few days.

We had a full day in Kelowna and I was keen to visit a couple of wineries. The first was a very beautiful and it has to be said slick and professional place called Mission Hill. It sits on the top of a hill as one may imagine and overlooks the Okanagan Lake. Here is a shot of part of the winery.



The bell tower dominates the skyline and has a very Italian feel, though it is quite a modern construction. The next shot is taken in the cellar, and again was taken only with available light with the camera resting on another barrel



Needless to say we had some tasting, and then some more tasting helped by this very imposing gentlemen whose badge named him as Santa, though in reality it was Tom



Here are a couple of other shots taken in the wine shop, which I took to illustrate what this camera will do. The first shows some of the award winning wines of the Mission Hill winery and was taken handheld, as indeed was the second one. I have only corrected the WB and tweaked the exposure.





We are now in Nelson, which is further east and is in the Kootenay region of BC. As I type it is 7am and my window overlooks the Kootenay Lake. Hopefully I'll get some shots during our stay here, and I'll add to this blog when I can.