Blog roll and videos regarding outdoor photography gear, adventure photography, outdoor lifestyle photography, landscape photography, travel photography, and reportage photography.
I've compiled a short list of equipment that I use along with a short description of why I have chosen that specific piece of equipment. If you have questions on anything, please feel free to shoot me an email or even give me a call. Go check it out...The Gear I Use.
Cheers.
About the time you;re reading this (if anyone's out there) I will be headed North to do some canyoneering near Vancouver. It’s tough to bring cameras canyoneering. In the past, I’ve spent a fair bit of blog space writing about camera bags and photography accessories. It may seem like a lot, but in the world of adventure sports I find it a challenge to safely carry a camera during certain activities. And when I say safely, I’m not just talking about not destroying my camera. In a canyon, I’m in and out of a harness, on and off ropes, cliff jumping, sliding rocks, and a mistake can be costly. I’ve been slowly revamping my carrying system on each trip and the latest setup is what I have listed here. If you’re just starting out this may give you a few tips.
My camera of choice deep in a canyon is my Canon Powershot G15. It has a wide aperture range starting at F/1.8, can shoot in RAW mode, records full 1080p files in 30fps, and comes in a compact package. The other huge advantage for me was the cost of the underwater housing. At just over $150 it was a more affordable solution than the $1800 version for my Canon 7D Mark II DSLR. The one aspect of the housing that I’m still working out is how to keep water from forming droplets on the lens window. I’ll have something worked out before my next trip and I’ll give you an update.
I took the G15 and housing on my last canyoneering trip through Das Boot and the Subway in Zion National Park, but I found the camera was often swinging in the way and wasn’t secure enough for down-climbing or rappelling. In fact, several times my housing took a fair beating against rocks and the canyon walls.
Another great camera to take is a GoPro. I’ll be taking two GoPro HD Hero2’s with 16GB cards with me to British Columbia. This is enough for almost 3 hours of footage each, not to mention the option of photo bursts and time lapses. I need to expand my array of attachments for the GoPro, but I’ll be taking a helmet strap and the standard base on this trip.
Clik Elite Standard SLR
Now for the good stuff! As far as a bag goes, I’m taking a modified Clik Elite chest carrier along with my REI brand daypack. I’ll be placing the camera and housing in the top-loader for safe-keeping during technical times, but maintain easy-access to this equipment during the remainder of the canyon. This Clik Elite bag came with Velcro buckles for attaching to external backpacks and daypacks, and I’ll be attaching mine to my REI daypack. I’ve modified both the Clik Elite harness and my daypack to have grommets in the bottom for draining water. Inside the daypack I carry a 8L Sea to Summit dry bag for dry clothes, wallet/keys, batteries/cards, emergency items, etc. and a 13L Sea to Summit dry bag to protect my camera bag with DSLR and lenses. Everything else gets stuffed in the bag.
Adding grommets to the bags was a simple and cheap solution that makes a world of a difference. I purchased a grommet kit from Harbor Freight and added the grommets myself. Another great feature of the bag is the camera tether. It features a small snap for easy removal, and helps keep the camera from dropping where I can’t retrieve it.
Clik Elite Chest Carrier with REI Daypack
Canon G15 and Underwater Housing
A little side note that warrants repeating is that SD cards are waterproof. My G15 and the GoPro’s take SD cards as well as my Canon 7D Mark II. Once in the past, I sent my camera swimming with CF cards and I was very lucky to retrieve all of the images. Just to be safe, I now use SD cards whenever possible.
Well that’s the low-down on my canyoneering photography setup. Let me know if you have any questions.
I know I've mentioned several of these essential photography items here on my blog before, but I thought it worth a post bringing several of them together in one place.
This is really for Canon shooters. I HATE the Canon lens cap. If you have a lens hood on your lens and try to get the cap off you better have elf fingers. I got so frustrated with this that I started to buy Nikon lens caps for all my lenses. Since then, I discovered these little gems and purchase one with every new lens. These make me lust after Nikkor glass a little less.
This is really a two-for-one in that I really enjoy having a point-and-shoot camera that is fully manual and takes great pictures. My G15 is an essential part of what I take with me, but the underwater housing is great for adventure trips and saved me a lot of up front coin on a housing for my DSLR. The camera and housing are relatively cheap ($399 for the G16 and $199 for the housing) compared to $1649 for an Ikelite housing. The results I’ve gotten with this cheaper combination are incredible. Side note, you can sell a camera for quite a bit more if you include the underwater housing.
I’m not talking about a fancy strap, just the factory included camera strap. For a long time I left the camera strap off all of my camera bodies. I felt like it got in the way and I didn’t like using it with an attached *grip. That all changed as I started experimenting with video. Now, I often sling the strap over my neck and force the camera out with both hands to anchor video shots and make hand-held pans A LOT smoother. You should give it a try!
*I abandoned my battery grip long ago because of the weight.
I think I’ve mentioned these before (here and here) but I can’t say enough good things about their product. You’ll never go back to Velcro after using a TrekPak system.
Only one of my current bodies takes an SD card, but I find I use it as my default card format. Lots of people know this, but in case you didn't, SD cards are waterproof and CF cards are not. I learned this the hard way back in March when I lost a camera and lens to a wet slot canyon. No one plans on drowning their camera, but if a dry bag or underwater housing fails, it's nice to know your hard-earned pictures are safe.
What a difference! Continuing with my post from last week, I wanted to mention an upgrade for my Mac Pro that came in the mail this last week. With external drives and many other things upgrading to a USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt connection, I went in search of an expansion card for my Mac Pro that would increase connectivity and decrease my data transfer times.
I tried to find someone that had added Thunderbolt ports to their late model Mac Pro, but this was not to be. I did, however, find plenty of people that had purchased, and successfully installed, a USB 3.0 card.
I ultimately decided on a Sonnet 4-Port USB 3.0 PCI express card. I looked at several other 4-port cards, but many of them required additional power from the mother board. Not having additional power to give, I went with the card from Sonnet. Shipping was fast and installation was simple (plug and play).
I've run some preliminary tests and this thing will save me hours of time in the long run. I've connected my Time Machine backup drive in addition to my new Lexar Workflow Hub and everything is flying! Based solely on the time it's saving me, I should have made this purchase long ago.
