On the IA Summit, Vegas and the Leica D-LUX 3...

Posted March 24, 2007 9:45 PM.

Tomorrow I'm going to be talking at the Information Architecture Summit in Las Vegas on a panel about Information Architecture beyond the level of the individual site. Myself, Margaret Hanley, Matt Biddulph and Lisa Chan will bet talking about the web of data, building data for reuse and all that kind of thing. You can read more about it in the IA Summit's description of the panel: Real information architecture – new mighty deeds. If you're around at the event, I hope you'll consider keeping us company and asking lots of scary questions.

In the meantime, I'm split about 50/50 between immersing myself in the conference and getting lost around Las Vegas with my new camera, the Leica D-LUX 3. I chose it because since I bought my first camphone I've been taking pretty terrible quality pictures, but I've also felt very little (if any) compulsion to take my IXUS around with me. The difference in quality between the phone and the IXUS just wasn't significant enough to justify the extra space it would take up in my pocket. The Leica is a whole other story. It's sufficiently good quality for me to take pictures that are dramatically superior to my phone and sufficiently powerful for me to learn about aperture and focal length and all of that stuff without having to carry around a huge SLR all day.

Which brings me to my photos. Being in Las Vegas is affording me some interesting opportunities to take some interesting shots. Here are some of the pictures I've managed to get together so far. You can see more—as usual—on my Flickr stream:

Comments

Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.

How are you finding the Leica? I need a new camera and whilst I don't want to spend a small fortune on a digital SLR I want a camera that is a bit more flexible than a newer version of the old IXUS that I'm currently suffering with. I'm liking the look of this Leica!

→ Posted by: Suw at March 25, 2007 11:30 AM

Oooh, oooh, snap: I just got a Leica D-Lux 3 as well, and I'm very impressed with it. I particularly like the low-light quality, which is noisy but soft and un-digital-like. And the wide aspect ratio is unusual and sexy. I particularly like your Mirage photo - that's lovely.

→ Posted by: Virginia at March 26, 2007 12:25 AM

Hey Tom - saw your tweet about searching for reactions to your talk. One way to do this would be to set up an RSS feed beforehand with a pipe like this:

http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.info?_id=tPZLcYXV2xG3oRMm60jTQA

You could search for 'tom coates' or whatever, then subscribe to that RSS feed and get live updates if anyone tweets about you. You can also save the RSS somewhere, or pump it back into Twitter with http://twitterfeed.com/ or... etc.

Basically, I want to do this, but no one talks about me on Twitter...

→ Posted by: James Bridle at March 26, 2007 12:53 PM

I'd be curious about a mini review too. I'm in a similar boat, it's impossible to carry around a huge DSLR all the time, but I want something that's powerful and shoots RAW. I've been looking at the various new and old digital Leicas since Mr. Cederholm got one.

→ Posted by: Jacob Harvey at March 26, 2007 4:49 PM

Well, that's my twaddle budget for the year gone. Thanks, Tom, for pointing me towards my next camera.

→ Posted by: giles at March 26, 2007 10:34 PM

Hiya fella
Don't spose u know if there's an mp3 of your talk knocking about anywhere? I've looked around but cannae see

→ Posted by: Michael at March 27, 2007 11:41 AM

congrats on the Leica. They rock... Although I love my D70, I would love to get a Leica as well, becasue their lenses are second-to-none.

→ Posted by: faisal at March 27, 2007 4:15 PM

→ Posted by: billbreedlove at March 29, 2007 6:55 AM

Want to add your opinion?