After being a few days in bustling Manhattan, D.C. turned out to be quite different from the Big Apple, although I kind of expected that. I arrived today (for the first time) and from the moment I stepped into the Ronald Reagan National Airport I noticed that everybody was moving at a much slower and relaxed pace. I’m not sure if you guys noticed, but in many cases the airport tells you a lot about the city. In my experience if an airport is all crowded where you are always bumping into others or being bumped into, that’s exactly how the city is going to be, sans the luggage of course. The D.C area is a lot less crowded when compared to NY, people are walking a lot slower and there’s actually room to walk : ) As a pedestrian I liked the fact that in the D.C area the traffic lights show you how much time you have left to cross the street, something that we don’t have in my country and something that I don’t remember seeing in NY. With cabs that almost try to run you over, even when it’s your turn to cross the street, NY sure could use a few of these. Last night when I went out for sightseeing, it didn’t seem like it but I had actually walked about 10km with the last 2 being covered by the cab ride.

Normally I would not walk this long, but one thing made me do it: the picture opportunities! The thing that stood out the most in D.C is the great architectural detail found in the area, not to mention the countless national landmarks, monuments and museums. This makes the D.C area perfect for snap-happy tourist, especially if architecture is their thing. Most of these monuments I had only seen in pictures and on TV, so seeing them for the first time was very exciting (dare I say emotional?) and this had actually made me forget about the temperature. Because these buildings aren’t as tall as those in Manhattan I pretty much got a perfect GPS signal for as long as I used the N82. But getting back to this picture taking opportunity called D.C, I decided that I would visit the monuments and landmarks at night, perfect opportunity to showcase the N82’s ability to shoot excellent, stand-alone digital camera-perfect pictures. I’ll let you guys in on a little secret: even though previous camera phones I’ve bought had good picture quality, I always took my digital camera with me as I wanted to  leave the serious picture taking for my stand-alone digi cam. Based on my previous comparisons and test covering the N82’s image quality, I was actually convinced that I could leave my digital camera at home and take only the N82. So this is actually my first time I didn’t bring my Canon along, which in my opinion says a lot about how far the Nseries, in this case the N82 has come. Back in November 2007 when we went to Finland for the N82 launch, I only had the N76, so I took my Canon Powershot along.  Al these guys were equipped with their Smartphones as their main and only imaging device, while I was the only one with both. Honestly I felt that the N95 was good, but serious pictures were left for the Canon. Because of this you guys can imagine how I stood out when I took out my Canon in front of all these people. I even remember Stefan jokingly commenting: Hey that’s not an Nseries! Well I can finally say that they have converted me for the right reasons, no digital camera to be found anywhere in my luggage. After reviewing the pictures I had just taken I wasn’t disappointed neither, the N82 took some pretty nice and even dramatic shots. I’m accustomed by now, but once you think about the fact that this thing is a fricking computer and it takes these awesome shots, you just have just stop and be amazed. Some of these shots required a wide-angle lens, something at least in the 28mm range, something that the N82 lacks. The N82 does have photo-stitcher called Panoman, but that won’t cut it in this case as it doesn’t produce full-size images and it requires a tripod or a very very  steady hand which I just don’t have. Even with my shaky hands the images turned out excellent with almost no camera-shake. Besides the wider lens, I wish I the N82 had at least 3X optical zoom to get closer to some of the details. Sure, I could just walk closer to my subject or the scene, but in some cases the getting closer was impossible due to some wall or fence or the danger of me getting arrested for trespassing, so I guess I’ll stick with “we need 3X optical zooming .” I also missed a slow-shutter mode, which allows you to make these stylized shots where fast moving objects like cars leave a light trail behind them. Other than these few shortcomings, I didn’t have a lot to complain about. Analyzing the shots a little closer reveals these uncharacteristically clean night-time images, especially if you consider this was taken with a smartphone. Some good quality cameras will definitely outperform it in this area, but the N82 performs on par with your typical point-and-shoot digital camera.

After the sightseeing walk and after all the excitement had died down, it had had actually occurred to me that it was really freezing. Such is the power of the mind! At the end of that trip I was tired and just wanted a cab to go back to my hotel. I did have some difficulty finding a cab due to the fact that they aren’t bright yellow as the ones in NY, for that reason they are not as easy to spot. I was dressed in black so obviously I wasn’t that easy to spot either. While looking for a cab it was just cold and I don’t think I ever felt that cold in my life. To add insult to injury the wind was blowing harder than what I had experienced earlier during the day making the freezing temperature feel colder than what it actually was. As you know Wind Chill is the apparent temperature felt due to the combination of the true temperature and wind. The higher the wind, the colder it’s going to feel. Well at that moment it really was blowing and it just felt cold! Just when I thought that I’m going to have to walk quite a bit more to get a cab, one stops right in front of me. Bingo!

My next stop will be a one day stop in Atlanta.