There's a certain pleasure in walking around with a camera in the "point and shoot" mode. Especially if the camera performs well that way.

I finished up a couple of post processing intensive projects one day last week, missed my swim due to work deadlines, and decided to head out for a walk; more with exercise in mind than any sort of photographic mission. But unless we're out for a run I just find it hard to leave home without a camera. You never know what you might see. 

My brain was overwhelmed with photo minutia and I was tired of being exacting and careful. I picked up the small and (relatively) light Sigma FP and the Sigma 45mm lens and took a few minutes to set up the camera as close to a point and shoot as I could. I put it in Auto-ISO (something I very rarely use!), put the color mode into "standard" and put the operational mode in program. AWB, of course. And to make it super specially informal I also put the camera's AF into the multiple point configuration.

One more nod to eccentricity was putting the aspect ratio is the 1:1 setting. A bit of nostalgia for the Hasselblad film days (and if those wacky bastards at H-Blad had any brains they'd immediately introduce a camera model designed completely around a square sensor!!!) and the sensor layout the photo gods originally intended....

It was brilliantly sunny on that particular afternoon. The skies were clear in the way skies get when rain takes the haze away and then a strong wind clears out everything else. Everywhere I looked people were out walking their dogs, walking their children and walking their spouses. You would have thought it was Spring time in Austin. 

I waved the small camera around at anything that caught my intention. If the shot didn't turn out well I didn't bother to shoot again and try to fix it. Not much photography got done but it was a good excuse, after hours and hours in front of the computer screen, to recalibrate my eyes to work at a distance again. 

I cruised through downtown and felt sorry for all the people who had to be at work that day. On the way home I picked up flowers for the house and treats for the Dog. The camera was, for once, a definite afterthought. And that's just the way it should be sometimes. 

One interesting note about the Sigma FP that I discovered today: In the playback menu the camera is set by default to only show stills. I shot some video and I couldn't get the camera to play it back. I went through every setting until I came to that arcane setting in the playback menu. You can filter the selection of playable file formats to include or exclude specific kinds of files and, with a broader brush you can select or deselect "only video" or "only stills." Once I switched to "include all" everything was fine. But I still think that level of specificity is a bit onerous and bizarre. Not sure why I would want to exclude anything in a playback menu. Maybe you can inform me.....

I do understand that the camera probably doesn't want to play back huge video files done in raw but......

Tacky material for a dinner jacket. But fun to photograph.