This trip was my first opportunity to use a new Canon 20D digital SLR that my 16-year old son, Joe, purchased. He was kind enough to let me borrow it – he couldn't use it because at the time he was hiking at Philmont Scout Ranch in northern New Mexico and the weight of the camera and lenses would have been too great. (Indeed, carrying the camera on the 40+ miles of hiking I did on this trip nearly doubled the weight of my day pack.)

The camera was a pleasure to use, if for no other reason than for the first time in my life I was able to shoot with complete abandon; no worries about bracketing, shooting many framings of the same subject, experimenting, trying ridiculous hand-held shots in low light, etc. I shot over 1000 pictures in seven days; had I been shooting film I might have taken 1/5th that number.

The lenses were another story. The three I had were all cheaper, consumer-style zoom lenses and shooting in the often low light of Kauai's overcast and jungle meant shooting wide open, the obvious weak spot of already lower-end lenses. I think Joe will be getting some L-glass lenses for Christmas . . . or maybe Columbus day – isn't that coming up soon?

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