{"id":27064,"date":"2020-09-17T09:44:32","date_gmt":"2020-09-17T13:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/?p=27064"},"modified":"2020-09-17T09:44:32","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T13:44:32","slug":"money-well-spent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wading-in.net\/walkabout\/2020\/09\/money-well-spent\/","title":{"rendered":"Money well spent"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"smutphone
… or at least, so far. I doubt I’ll be regretting it.<\/p>\n

The Girlfriend and I take the kayaks out every once in a while, so far only on Jordan Lake (though they’ve been out at both North Topsail Island, NC and Murrell’s Inlet, SC,) and the biggest frustration that I have with this – still admittedly minor – is that I have no decent way of capturing images or video of any of the things that we see out there. This has included bald eagles, herons, egrets, osprey, kingfishers, and even a surprisingly mellow green heron that appeared to be following my kayak from a minimal distance (like down to four meters.) I don’t trust the good camera equipment in a kayak, not to mention that the stowage would be difficult. So I was simply using the $25 smutphone in a waterproof case, and you know how I feel about smutphones<\/a>;<\/strong> this impression did not improve in the slightest during my uses of it for these forays.<\/p>\n

\"smutphone
So the question was, what to do about it? While I would love to carry the serious lenses along, that’s way too risky with a kayak that might overturn (or even that collects drips from the paddles within.) I started looking at the waterproof ‘skin-diving’ bags that are available, but they would at best allow only a shorter lens, and there was still the issue of where to put it in a single-person kayak. I finally decided to get a dedicated underwater camera, one with the longest focal length I could find, and had that narrowed down to three different models, weighing options against price and how often I might be using it. The deciding factor came when I found the best model available used for a decent price, so I picked up a Ricoh WG-60, which also has macro capability, should I find myself pursuing macro subjects underwater (instead of using the macro aquarium.) <\/p>\n

\"likely
Its first real test came yesterday afternoon, when The Girlfriend and I did an outing on Jordan Lake – the tree seen here may appear from time to time later on, because I like it and may do more experiments other than the quick pass that we did.<\/p>\n

But the real find wasn’t a tree. While watching a great blue heron on the banks, I saw a branch behind it bounce violently, way out of proportion to the wind or an average sized bird, and I suspected a green heron or something larger, so we kept our eyes on it as we drew closer. The video tells it better.<\/p>\n