Adventure Nomad

Adventure Nomad

Monday, November 12, 2007

You Can’t Go Back

Last week, we revisited the Ketam Mountain Bike Trail on Pulau Ubin. I wanted to buy a Sea&Sea DX-1G / Ricoh GX100 and bring it along on this ride, but my wife said I needed a ‘cooling off’ period of 1 week before I would be allowed to buy it.

I felt my Nikon D200 was a little too big and heavy to ride with and I didn’t want to risk smashing it up should I crash (a very real possibility). So I pulled my Canon 350D with the 10-22mm lens out of the dry box. After playing around with it for about 15 minutes though, I was thoroughly confused and frustrated. To cut a long story short, it reminded me of why I switched back to Nikon in the first place.

Disappointed, I put the 350D back into the dry box and I reluctantly pulled out my D200 and tried to think of a way to carry my camera, have it protected and yet not interfere with my ability to ride.

I ruled out putting the camera into my hydration pack because of leakage worries (my bladder blew out he week before and leaked lime squash all over my back. Yuk!). Other options for carrying the camera included putting it into my camera backpack (too big), fanny pack (still too big). In the end, I put it into a Lowepro Topload Zoom case and slapped on a 2-inch wide waist belt.

It worked out very well. With the case pushed behind me, it didn’t interfere with my riding at all. All I had to do to access the camera was swivel the case to the front. Needless to say, I’m very happy with this system for riding. Anybody want to buy a used 350D?

Photo:
Take A Closer Look. Aloysius Wee takes a closer look at a Yellow Orb Web Spider. Taken with a Nikon D200, Nikkor 12-24mm lens.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ken,

I came across your photos when I was looking for information about riding in Chiang Mai. I've sinced marked you as a contact in flickr.

Anyway, I'm dropping a note because you mentioned the GX100. By a strange coincidence, I got one just last week. I've used it on the PCC Presidential Ride last weekend, and I must say it is very good compromise in terms of size and weight v. picture quality and general ease of use. (See photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeadnan/sets/72057594132426490/

The one downside is that I only found out that Sea&Sea don't sell the housing separately AFTER I bought the camera...

Best regards
Joe Adnan

Unknown said...

Hi Joe,

Thanks. I checked out your shots. Its not easy taking action shots with this camera as there's still quite a bit of shutter lag. I'm experimenting working around this by using 'snap' focus in conjunction with the wide '24mm' lens setting.



Ken