Click photos to visit J&R catalog pages for Canon S410 camera (about $320) and matching WP-DC800 underwater housing (about $170)
Photography is a huge field, and there are a lot of digital cameras out there... but in keeping with the spirit of this shop we're going to tell you only about the one we have found to be perfect for kayaking. As fast as this industry changes, you can be sure that before long there will be more pixels for the buck from others, but there's more to the decision than comparing specs.
In my early kayaking days, I carried a film camera (the excellent Pentax Zoom 90WR) that was reasonably waterproof. It was wonderfully liberating to bungee it to the foredeck, not worry about salt-water splashes, and gently hose it off now and then with my water bottle. But then the world turned digital.
Ever had a drop of salt water take out $350 worth of electronics? It has happened here. So when the time came to upgrade (again) to the latest technology, we had to make sure it could handle a corrosive environment. The result, in 2001, was that I bought a Canon S300 with WP-DC100 underwater case... and after 5 years of trouble-free use replaced it with the new SD500 while a friend picked up the SD410 shown here.
This is good stuff, and we recommend it to fellow kayakers. The S410 is a 4.1 megapixel marvel with 3X optical zoom and compact flash cards (Jeannie upgraded immediately to 512 MB). Performance is excellent in all respects, and we routinely publish photos from these Canons in both online and print media. The cameras talk USB, and our laptops (both Mac and Windows) inhale images without a burp. They do QuickTime movies, output directly to NTSC if you want to send live video or captured images to a TV, and so on... basically, all the digital camera features you would expect in 2004, wrapped in a solid little package that is easy to have with you all the time. (When powered off, the lens retracts into the stainless steel body and is protected by a shutter.)
But what sets these apart is the matching underwater housings, with all controls accessible and a 100-foot depth rating. This is the kind of functionality that used to cost well over a thousand bucks; but now you can go digital in the sloppiest paddling environment without having to worry.
All the specs and other details are on the J&R website... just click the pictures to learn more. I recommend a second battery so one is always ready to go...
