Camera Voodoo

Fishermen are a superstitious lot and we’re no exception. Anyone who’s followed us over the years knows about our devotion to Rain Jacket Voodoo. (Yes, capitalized.)

Rain Jacket Voodoo is where you can carry rain gear for months and never use it, but the first time you venture out without it you’ll get soaked. We see it all the time. The worst thing you can do is announce you left your rain gear in the car about a half mile into a float. My ears immediately perk up for the sound of thunder.

Cameras are no different. There have been many times when a memorable fish was landed and no one had a camera. Oh well. Good thing it was memorable.

One of those moments when you’re glad you had a camera

Yesterday my good camera wasn’t on the desk where I usually leave it so I assumed it was in the gear bag. When I got to the river it wasn’t in the bag. No big deal. I still had my GoPro for any underwater shots and a smart phone for any hero shots.

Cell phone cameras are exceedingly common now, but I don’t like using one for most of the pictures I take. I prefer a DSLR with a polarizer and good zoom. A macro function is also very useful for shots of bugs and extreme close ups of fish. Figure in the fact that I also can take HD video with this camera and I always prefer it if I expect to take pictures.

Yesterday was a pretty good day on the water. We didn’t land any fish that were out of the ordinary, but the dry fly fishing was pretty good and the fish were gorgeous as usual. We were just a couple of minutes from the car at the end of the day and just up the slope I spotted it and instantly wished for the “good” camera instead of the smart phone in my waterproof wader pocket. A black bear was grazing on greens, then paused to watch us watching him. Here’s the best pic of the lot.

That smart phone lens just doesn’t do as well as I’d like when you need to zoom. Here’s an image from last year that’s quite a bit further away than what you might think. Nothing like a good lens to make a picture crisp and sharp.