I’ve always wanted an under water camera. I’ve traveled to some incredible places where I could had some great underwater shots, but underwater case for cameras are generally very expensive. Now Liquid Image has designed the perfect device for photographing and filming underwater, a digital camera mask! The best part, it’ll cost just over a hundred bucks!
via Engadget
Karin Bussard was testing out her Nikon D80 underwater, minding her own business, when a couple of sharks, who were up to no good, started making trouble in her neighborhood…
The next day we see more tiger sharks and I slowly start to get used to these enormous beasts. During a dive at sunset we are treated to four great tiger sharks. As a team we work together and take turns taking photos. At a given moment one of the sharks gets in too close to one of the divers and Jim intervenes. He gives the shark a push with the camera. The tiger shark is not impressed. He grabs hold of the camera and swims aggressively away with it. I am feeling uncomfortable and go through my oxygen quickly. Luckily the shark eventually lets go of the camera and swims away. Once we are back on board Jim asks if anyone made a photo of it. I ask him if he’s crazy. When I look at my photos that night I realize someone did take photos…
via Gizmodo
First, I appologize for the lack of updates recently. Clive and I have both been working furiously to generate some great new content for everyone. We took a few trips to “The Bog”, Lake Scugog, and had one hell of a time both on the lake and at the only bar in Port Perry the night before. Unfortunatly, we weren’t able to land any Musky on either trip, but we did find the occasional out-of-season Largemouth Bass and lots of Panfish and Rock Bass. The guy in the middle is Martin, a friend of a friend that happened to come along last minute. It couldn’t have worked out better because we had a crazy-ass time at the bar. He definitely knows what fishing fury is all about.
You may not have even noticed, but our site was moved to a new server a few days ago which will allow for the higher capacity of hits the photo gallery will no doubt generate, and further expansion into some new and exciting sites. This site may go down briefly tonight as I try, again, to update Wordpress to version 2.
The Fishing Fury photo gallery is coming along nicely and I’m expecting to launch the first version very soon. This would be my first project in Ruby on Rails and I wan’t to make sure it’s a bit more polished before I release it. Though I haven’t worked with RoR for very long I really like the environment they’ve set up, I just wish (like many newbies, I’m sure) their online documentation was a bit more complete.
I’ve even got another review coming soon!
JVC Everio First Impressions - I bought this camera because it sounded like everything I wanted and needed (other than High Definition), and it would hopefully save me from hours of capturing footage from DV tapes. This camcorder is able to record over 7 hours of DVD quality footage, to it’s internal 30GB hard drive. Will it be everything I hoped for, or another great idea built on crippled hardware or software. (model: GZ-MG77U)
With Clive back from the British Virgin Islands, it only took us a day to get our gear ready and head back to the Toronto Islands for some pike fishing. Clive has been building some Mepps-like french spinners for himself, mostly with large blades for targeting big pike and musky. We figured that this would be the perfect time and place to test them out, and it definitely was.
We arrived at the Toronto Islands at noon, deciding to sleep in and head up for the afternoon bite. It didn’t take more than 10 or 12 casts before Clive was pulling in a nice 30″+ pike. I was pretty impressed, but when he pulled in another 30″+ pike, no more than 20 minutes later, I knew it was time for me to switch to an in-line spinner. Unfortunately, Clive didn’t make another similar spinner with the same type of blade, so I used my trustworthy Mepps #5.
As the day progressed we caught a few more smaller, “hammer handle”, pike as the day progressed. I started to get a little worried that I wasn’t going to catch a decent sized pike on this trip, and considering my last few trips to Toronto Islands (other than that nice Walleye), it looked like I would just be taking more pictures than anything.
Sure enough, no more than five minutes later it happened. (Click the picture or link below for more images, including one of Clive’s home-made lure. Again all photos were taken on my new Kodak V570)
Yesterday, I headed out for a day of fishing on the shores of the Toronto Islands in search of some Northern Pike with my friend, and fellow OFN‘er, Ric. We started at Wards Island and worked our way all the way, and through, Centre Island. The weather was nice, a bit cold but great for Pike fishing, however the sun didn’t make an appearance until after 2pm at which point the fish became much more active.
Ric definitely gets the trophy of the day, landing 6 pike to my 1. Not to mention the 36″ he picked up just before we left. Using my new Quantum PT Tour Baitcaster, with a super fast 7.0:1 ratio, I found it was very hard to slow my presentation down as much as Ric (using a 5.0:1 Abu Garcia Ambassador) and I ultimately paid the price in less fish. Reguardless, I learned a lot about my new gear and had a great time.
Click on the link, or image, below to see all of the pictures from our trip. All of the photos, aside from the one of me, were taking with my new Kodak V570.
Yesterday, I took my new Kodak V570 out to test its on camera image stitching. I tried to be fair, but at the same time, I wanted to put this feature in some interesting and difficult scenarios. The first two images were taken on a bridge near my house. I knew that the design of the bridge could pose some interesting problems with all of the angles and parallel lines. Secondly, because I was able to get a view above the street and buildings I had more sunlight, and because it was the afternoon the exposure levels could be quite different from image to image depending on which way I was facing.
The Kodak v570 only allows you to stitch three images together, so to get the most out of this test, I used the ultra-wide lens for all the images. If there are going to be any obvious errors they should occur at the stitch points, where two images are blended together. Feel free to click on the panoramic images for their full-sized (1-2MB) versions.
Test 1 - Taken from right to left. You can see some problems with the last (left most) stitch. There seems to be part of a metal bar sticking down, and if you follow the line and the sky to the left is slightly darker than the sky to the left. Im not exactly sure where the bar came from.
Test 2 - Taken right to left. Again, you can see some problems with the left most stitch, in both the sky and the bridge pattern below. There is another, much less noticeable, error with the parallel lines of the wooden floor.
Test 3 - Taken left to right. Thistest is much more like what Kodak optimized the sofware for, there are some very hard to notice errors, but I won’t point them out. The Kodak can definitely do what it claims and pretty well too.
Overall, I would say that I’m happy with the results. I knew going in to the test the camera would likely fail the first two, but it was interested in seeing how the software would compensate in such a scenario. And honestly I would have really been shocked if the first two images turned out as close to perfect as the third did.
My friend Shannon picked up this cool camera for me while he was in New York. This camera normally sells for $449.99 CDN around Ontario and around $399.95 in the US, but Shannon managed to find it for a truly amazing $200 USD. While I’m definitely not a big Kodak fan, I think this camera will bring some new versatility to my camera arsenal, which is growing by leaps and bounds this year, and my first impressions are that it’s actually pretty cool.
The Kodak V570 is the worlds first dual optical digital camera. This camera employs both a standard telephoto lens, with a 5X optical (3X digital) zoom capability, and an ultra-wide angle lens for tight places or huge scenery photos. The camera comes with a slew of modes for taking portraits, snow, text, fireworks, etc. Honestly I don’t really care about these modes as they just seem to lock certain ISO, exposure, and flash settings. However, behind all these boring modes I found a feature that made me forget about all that nonsense.
The V570 is capable of taking panoramic photos by stitching three images together using the cameras software. It takes on average about 20-30 seconds and the results are very good. Using the ultra-wide angle lens you can take a full 180° panoramic shot that is stitched perfectly by the software.
Before I give you my highlights I should tell you that I am only reviewing the camera. In fact I tossed out the docking station and software with the box. To get my images off the camera I just pull out the memory card and use a reader built-in on my laptop. Unfortunately, this means that the V570’s internal memory is useless to me.
First Impression Highlights
Some things I’m not so sure about…
Some things I already hate…
For a full list of this cameras features and abilities, see the Kodak V570 Specifications page.
With any luck I’ll have some great photos on Sunday from pike fishing on Toronto Islands.
Re: Contributors
Tyler Makeeff (11 hours, 16 minutes ago)Holy Cheese n crackers! This website has to be my new favourite, I check in on a daily basis now just to see the crazy n cool stuff you guys have goin on! A true top notch site! keep up all the hard work(if you could call it that)! When i get my hard drive fixed i'll start to upload some of my pics! Finally some passion for fishing!
Re: Simple And Effective Shore Fishing Tactics
Rommy (1 day, 10 hours ago)Thanks a lot for the article.I've been living King/Strachan for 10 years and never heard about fishing on TO Islands.Can't wait untill May.To Andrew: e-mail me for the good spot to catch carp in Toronto,please.Thanks again to Jonathon and Clive.
Re: Happy New Year!
Pierre (2 days, 10 hours ago)Happy new year all! I wish you big and strong fish!
Woody (2 days, 10 hours ago)That's the trouble right there, the finish on these Lures!...I started buying Rapala jointed and when i had a couple i just had to buy them in all the different finishes (Hot Perch, Perch, Walleye etc etc), i had so many in the end it was like i was collecting them to put in a glass case or something, i didn't dare use them, a Pike won't care if your Lure cost 5 quid or 30 quid, it's still gonna scratch all that fancy artwork/paintwork either way!...I sold all mine as a set on ebay in the end as i [...]
Re: Happy New Year!
chris (2 days, 14 hours ago)Happy New Year from sunny Kobe and frosty Ontario!
Re: Lakemaid Beer Shirt Contest
Pete (3 months, 2 weeks ago)I have a friend whose cottage is on Lake Chemong, never fished in it although I've heard all the stories. I was walking in it this weekend past, paddled it too, with Alexander directing.....check out the Curve Lake Powwow sometime!!!! I worked so hard this weekend, the shirt fell right offen me, so I need that shirt more than ANYONE else! Love your site!
Re: Bioline Contest!
Fishing Fury - A fishing blog about two guys with a serious passion for fishing, the great outdoors, crazy adventures, and heart-pounding entertainment. (3 months ago)[...] to Gary Switlick, the Bioline Contest [...]
Re: Stormy Kromer Hat Contest!
Jason Wilson (2 months, 2 weeks ago)I'm not much for a pithy comment, but I thought I'd leave a note about how honored I be to wear Kromer on my upcoming annual pheasant hunting trip to South Dakota. I'm sure that my hunting buddies will joke about how silly I look while they wear their stylized broad brim hunting caps, but I'll be laughing on the inside as my head stays nice and warm. I'll be laughing al the more when the stiff South Dakota wind picks up and Kromer is staying put. Finally, with the fall bite on, I know my new Kromer will call the [...]
Re: Get Girls Fishing! A How-To Guide for Men
LunaDrift (2 weeks, 1 day ago)You might enjoy the game Fishing Girl :) For all the girls out there that fish. http://www.lunadrift.com/p lay/fishing-girl.html
Re: Potential World Record Pike
Dick (3 months ago)Hi all, I am Dick van Hattem. The men who caught this wonderfull pike in the Netherlands. The pike was actualy 120 cm long, weight exactly 16.5 kilo's and was caught on a death perch on 10 meter deep water on 27 december 2000. But now.... the photo was shopped for fun. I had a reading for a fishingclub and this was the last picture of the reading I had for 100 quest. Name of the picture.... I have a dream..... Everybode was laughing. Really funny, never claimed the world record. Because it is not by far. http://www.metersnoeken.nl/inde x.php?option=com_content&task=s ection&id=13&Itemid=48 here you can find [...]