If anyone is interested, the url is: http://www.picturetrail.com/tpchen.

Thank you so much for posting the pictures. We will seeing some of those sights in July on the Rome and The Tuscan Highlights tour. I didn't realize Assisi was so beautiful. I loved the music that accompanied your pictures. Thank you so much for sharing!

Great pictures, thanks for posting them! I liked the music too.

Those were wonderful, the music was a fantastic touch! I thought I was going to go to Southern France next, but now, after going through your photos, I think I want to go back to Italy! Great Site! Shannon

I enjoyed viewing your pictures so much. I took the Grand Tour of Italy last August, and I relived the trip while viewing your photos. I am curious as to what kind of camera you used. The pictures are excellent.

Thank you for your comments.

To amf, Sue Gillen, thanks for signing my guest book.

To Tom and Denise, we were surprised by the beauty of Assisi on our trip. You will love those hill towns in Tuscany. Hope you have a great trip!

To Dianne, Shannon, Sylvia, my wife and I had a great time in Italy. I think we'll go back to Italy, maybe many more times!

Hi Sylvia,

I used a Minolta Freedom Zoom 90 35mm compact camera. I don't think Minolta make them any more. We shot 10 rolls of Kodak ISO 400 Gold films bought for the trip, and 4 rolls of Kodak ISO 200 films left over from our previous trip, TT's European Highlights, in September 2000.

Our films were developed and made to Picture CD's at Costco. A colleague of mine taught me a few tricks to tweak pictures with Paint Shop Pro 7. It's really amazing what an imaging processing software can do to pictures! He also convinced me digital camera is the way to go. I guess I'll have time until our next trip to learn about digital cameras!

Your colleague is right. Digital cameras are great. I took mine on the tour last summer, but I also took my APS camera. I always like to have another camera with me in case the adapter doesn't work and I need to charge a battery. I was surprised to find that I was the only one on the tour with a digital camera. It took good pictures, and it was fun to be able to email them when I got home to others on the tour. I was given a printer for Christmas so now I can print my digital pictures without using the computer if I wish to. I am taking Trafalgar's Scandinavia, Russia, and Independent States tour this summer. I am again planning to take my digital camera and another camera. I do have a Minolata Freedom Zoom 150, and the quality of your pictures has convinced me this is camera I should take as my second one.

tpc,

I've been waiting for you to post your pictures! They are all great! Brought back wonderful memories of my Real Italy trip. I took a point and shoot camera and my husband brought his Nikon SLR for the trip. His SLR broke down the first day in Florence so we had to rely primarily on my point and shoot Canon. My pictures were not as clear as yours. I like to be in the pictures, but oftentimes either I or the background gets out of focus. I think maybe my camera is not smart enough to focus both the near subject and the far background. Also, you got such good inside shots. Were the pictures taken inside St Peters and Vatican taken with flash? My point and shoot is almost useless at night and under low light condition.

Recently, I'm also seriously considering to purchase either a Canon G2 or a Sony Mavica CD-400 digicam. I am fed up with my point and shoot and my husband's SLR. Do you have a particular digicam in mind? The Canon G2 had a lot of owners complaining about a "crack in the back" . On the other hand, some people said that the LCD screens for the Sony Mavicas break easily. I'm visiting Taiwan/China in September, and I really would like to have a digicam at least 2 months before I go so I can familiarize myself with it.

Thank you for posting your pictures. I like how you provided links to different sites under many of your pictures. They will serve as references for future travelers to Italy. Thanks for your hard work!

Yifeng

Hi Pat,

Thanks for signing my guest book. I also need to thank you for the picturetrail.com web site info. I've tried several photo sharing web sites (http://www.andromeda.com/people/ddyer/photo/albums.html) and finally decided on this one. Even though I prefer better navigation and upload methods, picturetrail.com does provide most of the features I want and is very easy to use.

Have you had your pictures printed from picturetrail.com? I tested a few prints last week and they didn't come out with the quality I expected (printing were done by dotFoto, Inc.). I know I've got A LOT to learn about PPI, DPI, etc., and I made a mistake not cropping the images to the right sizes (for 4x6 prints). Shouldn't that only leave white margins on prints and not be out of focus? Oh well, need to study more on printing from image files.

Hi Sylvia,

At least three couples on our last tour carried digital cameras. I've had problems sometimes taking pictures inside churches where most of them don't allow using flashes. It seemed like no problem at all for those who using digital cameras. That's one of the reasons I will consider carrying a digital camera for our next trip. You've got a good point to carry a second camera.

Which digital camera do you have? I know I got a lot of homework to do about digital cameras. I'm curious as to which camera(s) give you better pictures, your APS camera or your Minolta Freedom Zoom 150?

Hi Yifeng,

Thanks for your reply and signing my guest book. I'm sorry that you had problem with your husband's SLR on your tour. SLR's are too complicated to me. My father tried to teach me how to use one but I didn't have patience to learn. I really don't take a lot of pictures except for family's birthdays, Christmas, and, of course, our overseas vacations. My out-of-date Minolta Freedom Zoom 90 P&S camera usually gives me good pictures in my photo albums. I learned from our first TT's tour to use 400 speed films mainly because of taking indoor pictures. Even with 400 speed films, I still had problem with some of my pictures taken inside churches. It's due to either not enough light or camera shake. A lot of occasions I had to take several shots of the same scene and hope I might get a good enough picture. In addition to faster speed films, other tips I learned and used on our last trip were (1) to hold the camera as steady and as long as possible, (2) to use pre-focus and exposure-lock techniques, and (3) not to use flash and to get as close to window as possible when taking pictures through coach window. They all seemed to help. While most of my film prints are fine, I used a software (Paint Shop Pro 7) to tweak those scanned pictures before I uploaded them to the web. I don't know whether the limitation of scanning or the scanning process itself to blame for somewhat blurred image files I got from my Kodak Picture CD's.
http://www.geocities.com/jpmccormac/tips.html
http://www.photographyreview.com/Learn^lessons^pandscrx.aspx

Sorry I can't help you on digicams. I have little knowledge about digital cameras and digicams. I guess I'm still in "stone age" when talking about these gadgets. Maybe someone else can answer your question on this forum.

A trip to Taiwan/China sounds wonderful. It's been a while since we visited some of our family in Taipei. Hope you have a good trip in September!

If I can use a digital camera, you can! I was given the camera as a gift and was certain I would never be able to use it. However, I soon learned that it wasn't as complicated as I thought it would be. I have a Digital Elph Canon Power Shot S100. I think that perhaps this has now been replaced with a new model. I love it for traveling because it is so small. I can fit into the palm of my hand or put it into my pocket. I am not a traveler who likes to be burdened by carrying around heavy cameras.
My APS camera is an Olympus Zoon 75, another small camera. I truly haven't found much difference between the pictures I take with my ASP camera and those I take with my Minolta. I like the ASP camera for traveling not only because of its small size but also because it is so easy to load the film, especially while walking. I do take many pictures, and before I take a tour, I seem to spend more time worrying about which cameras to take than I do about what clothes I should take. I do enjoy my albums, however, and can look at them and relive my tours and all the fun times I had. I have also learned that the photos I seem to enjoy the most are not of the scenery but the ones of the friends I met on the tour.