By Barb Thomson
Special to Black Press
In 1995, I attended the Western Academy of Photography in Victoria, where darkroom film development and printing was a major part of the curriculum.
Digital cameras had recently appeared as a new and expensive technology and were generally scorned for their poor pixilated image quality. Now, in the blink of 29 years, you can take beautiful high-resolution images instantly – on your boat, above your boat, or underneath your boat – using a drone, a GoPro, cell phone, tablet, or your smartwatch. Oh yes, and even a camera. Some of these devices are more suited to a marine environment than others.
For years, I used a manual Nikon FM2 on hikes along the coast, but my digital Fujifilm X-T1 came home from one boat trip with a lens barrel damaged by the fine sand in the air. Electronic devices are sensitive and one dunk in the salty drink will finish most all of them off.
“Do not underestimate the added difficulty if you want to fly a drone from a boat,” advises Yachting Monthly in How to Fly a Drone from a Boat, noting the water’s reflection can fool the drone’s sensors. While we’re not loading film anymore, we are taking pictures on an unstable moving platform exposed to the elements of wind, water, sand, and sun… in ways and with speed that we never could before.
Among the many, photographer Cheri Bridges’ 8 Tips for Photographers on Boats is a great website article for practical suggestions on how to keep yourself and your camera equipment safe.
For example, a tripod is “useless,” but a polarizing filter on your camera lens will reduce the water’s reflected light to help your camera “see” past the water’s surface and focus on the moon jellies bobbing past your hull. Enabling the grid lines in your cell phone’s camera settings will help level the horizon and the old “rule of thirds,” to offset what you see in the viewfinder from the ordinary bull’s-eye shot. Bumped your boat into a rock? Mount your waterproof GoPro onto a telescopic pole, hold it underwater, and have a look under the hull.
Back in the olden days of the Western Academy, the students often asked the instructors, “What’s the best kind of camera to have?” Despite all the advances in technology, the answer is the same now as then: “The one you have with you.”
Barb Thomson is a boating enthusiast who writes regular columns for the Comox Valley Record.
SOURCES
https://www.yachtingmonthly.com/gear/how-to-fly-a-drone-from-a-boat-95714
https://www.naturettl.com/8-tips-for-photographers-on-boats-and-at-sea/