About May’s Header Photo

May’s header photo was taken on a cloudy, overcast, drizzling Sunday afternoon, March 8, 2009. The view is looking south out over the Atlantic Ocean from the beach at Coney Island, NY.

It has taken me nearly four months to learn how to make the header photo extend all the way across the header. They key was to toggle off the “shrink to fit” button in the dialog box and to crop the photo to a width of 1210 pixels. The height of May’s header photo is 300 pixels and I may experiment more with the height over the next several months. For the time being, however, 1210 pixels wide seems to be the magic number.

As a reminder, most of my header photos, as most of the photos I use in my posts, have been taken with a SeaLife ECOshot waterproof and shock proof digital camera. While I occasionally have used my wife’s digital camera, the SeaLife ECOshot is my first real foray into digital photography.

I specifically wanted a camera I could take kayaking without having to worry about it getting wet. I have hiked and backpacked in enough pouring rain that from experience I could also see how a water proof camera on the trail would be a plus. When I have been snorkeling in the Bahamas I have used an inexpensive 35mm camera in a watertight plastic case and would have preferred to use a digital camera. While I generally take good care of my gear I can also be pretty rough with electronic equipment and liked the idea that the ECOshot is fully rubber armored for sure grip and extra shock protection. This is a great advantage when I’m climbing with the camera hanging off my rack and banging against the rock.

One drawback of the SeaLie ECOshot is lack of any sunshade. It can be pretty difficult seeing the image on a sunny day. Wearing polarized sunglasses makes seeing the screen almost impossible and I have to either take my glasses off or look above or below the lenses.

This past winter when kayaking in near freezing or below freezing temperatures the rechargeable Ni-MH batteries drained pretty quickly, but so did the batteries of everybody else, regardless of what camera they were using. I appreciate being able to use regular over-the-counter Alkaline batteries for those days when I have forgotten to charge the Nickel-metal hydride batteries.