JPEG Submarine

Baltic Sea Reflections

The long-awaited holidays I have written about in a previous post started with a visit to my parents, who live at the Baltic Sea. My youngest daughter came with me and while bathing in the aforementioned sea, I became inspired to take aquatic photos.

I got this to do them with.

So, a NIKON Coolpix AW120. Who thinks of these names? Not anyone cool or a photographer who has used rollfilm.
Anyway, this is an interesting machine. Waterproof to 59 feet, there were no worries on the shallow sandbank I took the lead photo on. It doesn’t float, by the way, so I kept it on a short leash. The lens has a nifty hydrophobic window that peeks out a bit at the upper left corner like a periscope that has become stuck. It has the usual assortment of buttons and menu items for a compact digital. So, all pro points there, where are the cons?
Here they come: it only does JPEGs. It does them good and there are image settings and manipulations aplenty, even a good black & white setting, too. But you don’t get RAW files and I’ve yet to find a way to influence shutter speed and aperture, its program automatic all the way with this camera.
Apart from pro and con points, there is a bonus point with this camera. It has GPS! Not only will it geotag your photos if you so desire, it shows you a map of your surroundings, a compass and your geocoordinates, too. This should make it an ideal camera to carry on the motorbike, for incidental photos out of a nearly indestructible box and as a fallback navigator (where am I?).
And what about the Nikon D800 I wrote about so enthusiastically? It is fine:

Here’s a photo of my wind-swept daughter I made with it and the AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II

Next stop: photos from a motorcycle trip to the French Alps with my elder daughter.

Tags: AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II, AW120, CoolPix, D800, Nikon, photos, pictures, underwater