When heading to the Everglades for a paddle trip, leaving the camera at home is as bad as leaving your paddle. You have to take photos while you are experiencing this place. If you don’t want to take photos, use your video camera instead. Either way, recording your trip with photos is the best way to re-live those moments. The article does not include camera reviews nor does it include photography techniques. Rather, I’ll give you my experiences and advice on how to care for and use your camera while paddling.
THE EQUIPMENT But you don’t have a waterproof camera, you say. That’s OK, you have lots of choices. And if you don’t own a camera right now, this is a good time to start looking into purchasing one. Buy a disposable camera if you like, but one way or the other, you need one. I have experience with three types of cameras, a small digital point and shoot waterproof (Pentax Optio), a larger digital point and shoot with teleconverter attachments (Canon Powershot S3) and my current DSLR cameras, the Sony A100 and A700. Each of these has been on a kayak or canoe trip with me at one time or another. My experiences should help you decide on which camera you want to use for this trip or put your mind at ease if you are not certain you want to bring a non-waterproof camera with you.
I love the waterproof Pentax Optio. The version I used was purchased in 2005 and came with a measly 5 megapixels. The advantages of a waterproof (not water resistant) camera are obvious. Because of the waterproof quality, I submerged this camera for some shots. I don’t recommend this in salt water though. I had to send it back for repairs to the sensor (probably fried by the salt), fortunately it was still under warranty. After that, I never submerged it again. If you do submerge it in salt water, on purpose or otherwise, I recommend you wash it off with fresh water immediately. The smallness of this camera was another advantage in that I would carry it in my chest pocket (with the strap still around my neck). This allowed easy access to the camera at all times and I never worried about it getting wet from water spray or rain. The newer versions of waterproof cameras are probably better than they were 3 years ago and I suspect there are more options available. For a low maintenance, never-have-to-worry-about-it camera, this would be your best bet. In addition, the camera does not require extra room. Just bring extra memory cards and batteries and keep them in a small pelican case for safe keeping. The disadvantage, don’t expect to take professional-level photos with it, but you will at least record your trip while on the water.
After a year of using the Pentax, I purchased a higher level point and shoot camera, the Canon Powershot S3. The reason for purchasing this camera was its image stabilization feature, so nice to have when shooting from a moving boat. The Powershot is considerably bigger than the tiny Pentax and could not fit in my pocket. Instead, I bought a 1200 Pelican case that was large enough for the camera and a couple teleconverters. The pelican case fit nicely inside the cockpit. I still had my Pentax with me and would use that while paddling to capture the moment. I only took the Powershot out while paddling if I wanted to get a closer wildlife shot or a particularly beautiful scene. Once at the campsite, the Pentax was put away and I shot only with the Powershot. On occasion, I brought a lightweight tripod and would use for sunset and sunrise shots.
If the only camera you bring is one like the Powershot, I highly recommend a pelican case. But, if you want access to it at all times during your paddle, you might consider getting a waterproof casing for it. I never went that direction because I don’t like the idea of having the lens covered by plastic. The alternative for me was to find some way of keeping the camera accessible, but safe from water. What I finally came up with was to place the camera inside a dry bag that sat right in front of me on the spray skirt. I kept the dry bag tethered to the boat as well. Doing this spared me the time of having to open the spray skirt to get to the pelican case in order to use the camera. I keep the camera inside the pelican case in the cockpit when I don’t need it for shooting (choppy conditions, poor lighting, etc). When I do want to have continuous access to it, I take it out of the case and place it inside a dry bag to cover up the camera and lens, while the strap comes out of the bag and goes around my neck. I don’t seal the dry bag, rather I just make sure the camera and lens are fully covered. I have a towel in the bag just in case I need to wipe off water drops. In case I get drops on the lens, I have my lens smudge stick in my pocket. I also carry a lens cloth in my pocket to clean off the LCD or view finder.
The worse case scenario of course is that I capsize with the camera left in an open dry bag. Obviously, the camera is going to be history real fast. But, unless I do something stupid, the chances of that happening are so slim that I would rather risk it than miss a photo opportunity. If the conditions get too rough (and YOU decide when that is), simply put the camera back in the pelican case for safe keeping. You can’t get decent shots with lots of rocking going on anyway, so why bother. On the other hand, if you are trying to video tape the action, I say go for it, to at least record the moment.
Once I jumped into SLR photography, I had to put more thought into how I was going to protect my cameras and more importantly, my lenses. I have only one full year of using SLR cameras while doing trips in the Everglades, so this is a learning process for me as well. My experience with bringing an SLR camera on board a kayak was on a 2-night trip out to Picnic and Rabbit Keys. For this trip, I brought the Sony A100, and the Sony 18-70mm and 75-300mm lenses. I kept the camera with one lens inside the 1200 pelican case in my cockpit and would pull it out and place inside the dry bag in front of me whenever I wanted. The other lens was stowed away. I wanted to have the telephoto lens attached while paddling in case I spotted wildlife. The wide angle lens would be good for campsite shots.
At night, I would bring all the equipment into the tent and clean off the camera and lenses. It is important that you have a lens brush because you will get sand on your lens and camera, no matter how careful you are. Memory cards and batteries are in zip lock bags inside a dry bag. A small pelican case works for these as well.
The second time I took my SLR out with me on a kayak trip was over new years when we were on the coast for 7 days. There was a great amount of sand and water. This time, I brought the Sony A700 and being a larger camera than the Sony A100, it did not fit into the 1200 pelican case. Instead of purchasing a larger pelican case, I decided to keep the camera attached to a lens inside a dry bag with some drierite. I get drierite from work and filled a prescription pill container with the stuff. I poked holes in the container to expose the drierite to the surrounding humidity. When not using the camera, I would keep the camera in a small dry bag placed inside a larger dry bag in my cockpit. When I was using it while paddling, I had it in the open smaller dry bag sitting in front of me. During this trip, the camera sat inside the dry bag in front of me or was being used almost the entire time I was paddling. In other words, it was exposed to the salt air during most of the trip.
The problem I encountered was that everything gets moist, if not downright wet out here. Multiply that by 7 days and it gets a bit precarious for electronic equipment. Keeping the camera in the dry bag in front of me for easy access was a great idea and I would do it again. But, I will never take my SLR camera on a trip like that without a pelican case. The dry bag, even with the drierite container was exposed to moisture all the time. I would take the dry bag and air it out in the tent every night before putting the camera back in it. Despite all that, I didn’t seem to encounter any problems with the camera or lens and everything to this day is working fine.
FROM A CANOE Hands down with out a doubt, photographing and bringing along camera equipment is so much easier in a canoe. I recently purchased a large 1500 pelican case that I can store 2 SLR cameras both with telephoto lenses attached. This case fits nicely between my legs while I am sitting or kneeling in the canoe. I first took that out on an overnight trip on Fisheating Creek (about 100 miles north of Miami). I had just purchased a 70-200mm zoom lens and wanted to test it out. I also had my 300 mm (f4) with a 1.4X teleconverter. At any given time, I had one camera and lens in my lap, and on occasion, I had both of them on my lap. Before purchasing this large pelican case, I had taken both cameras with me on overnight trips with the canoe and kept one in a dry bag and the other in the 1200 pelican case. For those trips, I brought my Minolta 300mm and teleconverter attached to the A700 (stored in a dry bag inside another dry bag) and the 18-70mm on the A100 (stored in pelican case). While spending a day on the Turner River, I paddled most of the way with both cameras in my lap. Once on an overnighter to Lopez River, I kept the Minolta lens and camera on my lap during the entire trip and pulled out the wide angle lens whenever the occasion called for it. I also brought my Manfrotti tripod and ballhead for campsite photos on all of these trips. I keep that inside a garbage bag when paddling.
PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES Murphy’s Law dictates that you will see lots of photo opportunities but will not have your camera ready because a) you chickened out and had put it back in the pelican case, b) you ran out of memory or batter power and left your spares inside the hatch, or c) whatever it was you saw happened so quickly that the only way you could have captured it is if you were looking through your viewfinder just at that moment. This happens a lot out here. I’ve seen spectacular jumps performed by sting rays flying out of the water within a hundred feet of my boat. I’ve seen dolphin jump 6 feet out of the water while flipping a 3-ft fish into the air before catching it and crashing back down into the water. I’ve seen osprey hovering overhead just before they make a head dive into the water feet away from my boat and pick out a large fish and fly off with it to a distant mangrove tree. Yes, I’ve seen all these things, but do I have a photo to prove it? Of course not! But, I do have a lot of great photos that illustrate the beauty of this place, including lots of close up wildlife shots. So, the moral of the story is, be ready for a shot whenever you can, because the opportunities are non-stop.
Wildlife shot opportunities are often fleeting and when you are paddling from point A to B, they are mostly captured by being in the right place at the right time. I spend endless hours paddling around this area just for the purpose of photographing and I can tell you that capturing a close up of an osprey eating a fish head or a yellowcrown nightheron swallowing a crab is something that doesn’t come with just luck. You have to spend time out here to really capture those great wildlife photos. But, if you are trying to record your journey, look for those wildlife photos of course, but capture your surroundings as much as possible. Your campsite will provide you many opportunities as well, so be prepared to shoot at dusk when the bugs are at their best.
Lighting is an issue while photographing. While on a paddling trip, you don’t have the luxury of adjusting your route according to the light. Sometimes you get lucky. For instance, while paddling the coast from Flamingo to Everglades City, the early morning sunrise offered me the best lighting for the direction I was going because it was often behind me and to my right. Paddling toward the sun is not a good lighting situation, but sometimes, you have to take what you get. But, whenever you can, turn your boat in the direction that will offer you the best light (sun behind you). Late morning and afternoon sun light can be very harsh, especially on the water, so I usually forego the photos at that time and wait for late afternoon when I can explore the camp area with the camera.
LOCAL KNOWLEDGE Some of my favorite photo areas are the following:
Picnic Key beach. Here you will find it littered with many dead tree trunks and driftwood that have been shaped by the tidal waters over the past few years. At sunset, you can capture beautiful silhouetted figures with the sun approaching the horizon over the water. Look for fanciful shapes and arrangements on the beach to photograph. For macro photos, you’ll find snails wandering on some of the trunks.
Rabbit Key beach, west side. If you are camping on the side with the port-o-john, you won’t see a sunset from there. But, at low enough tide, you can walk around the island to the northwest side where you will find a large tidal-swept mangrove tree sticking out from a sandbar away from the shoreline. For the past couple of years, I have watched an active osprey nest that sits in this tree. At sunset and at the right time of year, you’ll capture a beautiful sunset scene with this tree and the osprey family silhouetted against a red glow. It’s exquisite.
Watsons Place. If you are lucky, you might be able to get some photographs of the old farm equipment on the campsite without people’s camping gear and tents in the scene. The sunset from the dock on the Chatham River is always a sure bet.
The Turner River. The mangrove tunnels and the open sawgrass scenes are exquisite. If you are a serious photographer, set up your tripod in the water and capture the essence of the swamp.
Chokoloskee Bay. If you are heading out through Chokoloskee or Rabbit Key pass, you will pass an area of oyster bars readily exposed during low tides on your right before you leave the bay. In the winter, a large group of white pelicans reside there. In the summer, you will see the bright pink, roseate spoonbills.
A list of camera gear essentials
Extra memory cards
Extra batteries
Two lens cloths (keep one in a safe place and use it as a back up if the other gets salt water on it)
A lens smudge stick and brush
Pelican case and/or dry bags
Towel
Tripod (for campsite sunsets)
Tight fitting gardening gloves (for those evenings when you want to shoot and the bugs are biting. The gloves will protect your hands while you shoot)
