Testing
The weather here is brilliant this week, so I played a little hooky yesterday afternoon and took my kayak out on Puget Sound. I had a mission as well as a desire to just splash around in the sun. As I mentioned a while ago, I was becoming disenchanted with the photo quality from my Canon S300 since acquiring my S3 IS, but I was restricted to the S300 in the kayak because I have a waterproof case for it.
I began researching a waterproof case for the S3 IS, and found that Canon is not likely to manufacture one for it, which is regrettable, since the one for the S300 is so well-designed and functional. In looking around for other sources, I settled on an item from Aquapac made for SLR cameras. It’s definitely not as elegant as the Canon:
But, I wanted a way to use the S3 IS, so I took the plunge and the bag arrived at REI Sunday. The biggest problem I had was turning the camera on & off, since you have to twist something instead of depressing a button. Whine, whine. But I was able to use the camera and its awesome zoom and video capabilities. I have a lens adapter on order that will help to orient the camera in the condom-like lens tunnel, and also allow me to use some filters.
Here are the results:
Just after I launched from Golden Gardens Park and paddled through the Shilshole Marina, I encountered tendrils of gillnets (although they could be tanglenets)strung around the bay in front of the Ballard Locks. Gillnets are set by fishermen (in Washington, only Indian fishermen are allowed to use them) and left unattended. They snag their fish, and are harvested periodically. That is, if the sea lions don’t harvest them first! As I paddled through, 2 or 3 sea lions were patrolling the nets and feasting on the catch. Here’s a video of them. At one point in the video, you can see a sea lion toss a fish ahead of him, then dive after it. The picture is pretty good, and the audio comes through the bag pretty well, too. And, yes, I’m talking to myself:
Sea Lion Sushi Bar - Click to play (6.1 mb)
Some still pictures through the bag below. I think I’m gonna like this once I get used to its limitations.
Click any photo to enlarge  |  |  |
