Last weekend I was swimming in the ocean and as I looked towards the shore people were arranged in groups and posed in mid-action in ways that struck me from my watery perspective as views I had never seen before. Beaches have long been a favorite shooting spot for numerous photographers – Elliott Erwitt, Eric Fischl, Weegee, Robert Frank, Joel Meyerowitz, Richard Misrach, and Massimo Vitale are just a few who come to mind – but because of the obvious technical difficulties none of these photographers have ever shot from the water. So I thought, here’s an opening, and decided this would be a fun end of summer project.
The first challenge was to find an appropriate camera and as it turns out, Pentax have just released a new digital underwater camera, the Optio W60, which is billed as a great knock-around little camera. It's waterproof down to 13 feet, sand and scratch-proof, has a 5x zoom, and can be found for under $300. It also uses the standard SD memory card. As I hate the idea of taking my regular camera to the beach for fear of ruining it, this seemed like a sensible addition to my camera collection and therefore a justifiable expense.
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