Slalom day

I've added a new category to Drupal. (Just thought I'd point that out for those of you who carefully watch this kind of thing) I'm a big fan of unsolicited product reviews. I think that when companies make something good, it should be lauded generously, and when they try to exchange crap products for money, they should be chastised publicly.

Up front, the story is that I've now got a waterproof camera for my kayak. It came on Friday, and with my schedule I didn't have a lot of time to figure out its nuances and set up a proper mounting. As a result, I only got a single, short piece of video.

On a kayaking note: nice job to the folks at Riversport for setting up a great slalom course, and thanks for allowing folks to practice on it Saturday. Also, nice work with the knowledgeable people around to give tips! I spent 2x as much time driving to Confluence and back as I did actually paddling, but it was well worth it.

Now, the camera I'm now using is a GoPro Digital Hero 3. I spent a few weeks surfing around the 'net looking for a digital camera for capturing my kayaking adventures, and finally picked this one, mainly because it was too inexpensive to pass up. Most of the cameras I looked at that fit the requirements (waterproof, shock-resistant) were $400 or above. There's a really nice system available for about $900 that includes remote lenses so you can tuck the camera body away somewhere and run a wire to a small, easily mounted lens ... but I can't justify $900.

All told, I spent less than $200 for the GoPro, including shipping.

The folks who make this camera took a different approach than all the other waterproof video cameras I've seen: instead of trying to make the entire camera waterproof and shock resistant, they took an inexpensive camera and wrapped it in a sturdy, waterproof case.

The big pros of the unit:

• Super small
• Inexpensive
• So far, passing the waterproof/shock-resistant test with flying colors
• Decent quality video and still images
• No funky crap to get your pictures off the camera, just use it like a USB hard drive
• The display screen is actually upside down so you can just flip the camera over and see it without being double-jointed. Excellent ergonomic forethought guys!
• Use of standard AAA batteries and SD memory cards means you can use the thing all day if you buy enough batteries and SD cards!

As many of you know, I don't use Windows (both of my home computers run FreeBSD, as does my office computer). I get extremely frustrated by companies that use proprietary interfaces that require their Windows software be installed. Where am I supposed to install it? It's actually easier (for the manufacturers) to just make the device work like a USB hard drive, and then the device works with all operating systems. This is what the GoPro folks wisely chose to do.

The camera isn't perfect, here's what I've found wrong so far:

• No screen means you can't check to see if you're getting a decent shot or not until you can plug it into a computer.
• The "recording" light is buried in the viewfinder in such a way that it's difficult to tell if the device is recording or not.
• Isn't worth a crap in low light. By low light, I'm not talking night time, I mean indoors. This is strictly an outdoor camera.
• Lousy viewfinder is nearly useless.
• The camera seemed to stop recording a random times and for no discernible reason. I still haven't ruled out that this might have been operator error, though.
• Buggy USB interface. It refused to work on FreeBSD because it doesn't respond properly to some USB commands. Under Linux, it tended to lock up while deleting images or unmounting the USB device. Not a show-stopper, I was still able to get my videos off successfully, but it required powering the device off and back on more than once.

Overall, I feel like I got my $200 worth. But don't buy this unit thinking you're getting an all-around camera. It's poor ability to deal with low-light makes it inappropriate for anything but outdoor shooting, and the lack of a screen to review your photos/videos will annoy you to death. If you're like me, however, and want something to capture, I don't know, let's say Kayaking footage -- I think you'll be glad you spent the $200.

The second new toy I got to try out yesterday is Cat Crap Anti-Fog Lens Cleaner (sorry, but I couldn't find a link to the manufacturer).

The back story is that I have to wear coke bottles in front of my eyes in order to see. The prescription is so strong that I'm restricted as to what kind of contacts I can wear, and it has pretty much disabused me of the use of contact lenses. I recently bought a fantastic pair of sports glasses, but I'm having a lot of trouble with them fogging up on the river. I'm talking about fogging up so badly that I can't see at all. (It's lots of fun running rapids when you can't even see where you're going, let me tell you!)

First I tried some Shield brand "Fog Buster" cleaning spray that I picked up at the eyeglass store. I don't think the eyeglass people are really considering the fogging conditions that occur during whitewater rafting when they manufacture this stuff. In other words, it didn't work.

So I took my problem to the TRPC message boards. The most popular suggestion seemed to be dish soap, but that seems to require repeated application during paddling, and I'm too lazy for that. So I took the advice of purchasing a $4 supply of Cat Crap to try it out.

It's not a complete success, I did still experience some fogging, and of course the ultimate goal is absolute clarity of vision at all times. But it did mitigate the fogging enough that I could see what was going on the whole 2-hour trip, and that's a huge improvement over what I'm used to. I did notice that the fogging got worse as time went on, and I expect periodic re-application of the product will help that. (Note to self: take the Cat Crap with you!)

So, overall, the Cat Crap is a success. And it cost considerably less than the $14 Fog Buster that didn't work at all!