You mentioned in a recent article you used a pocket camera on the docks. I am an amateur photographer and interested in which camera you carry as you walk the dock and what camera equipment you use to take the other beautiful pictures as you cruise. What did you use to take the whale and Baja pictures? I would also like to say I enjoy your website and appreciate you maintaining it. Dan
Hi Dan:
The walking around camera is an Olympus SW720: http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/product.asp?product=1225
It is waterproof to five feet (or so they claim – we’ve tested it to a couple of feet). It is a nice camera, but only has an LCD which is sometimes hard to use.
Our big cameras are Canon SLR digitals. We use both a 20D and 30D, and shoot in RAW format for most images. We are using L series lenses – a 70-200 and 24-70 – both F2.8. We just started using the L series. They are very bulky, heavy and costly. But also very quick to focus and very, very sharp throughout most of their zooming range. We found that with a single body we were always changing lenses and had continual problems keeping the processor clean.
I think shooting in RAW, where there is no processing done in the camera, and then controlling what happens to the image ourselves is the key. We have just started using Adobe Light Room for RAW processing – very powerful and so far not too hard to use. The photos from Mexico were done using Adobe CS3 and its RAW processor (beta release).
Regards- Steve
Posted by Steve Dashew (November 30, 1999)
