Kaimusailing

After lining up the proa hulls with the crossbeams temporarily lashed into position, the final steps of finishing the paint job on the tortured ply hull brought the project to a stopping point. The outrigger canoes could be used to paddle around for now, but further work to develop the sailing rigs and complete the rest of the outrigger platform would have to wait for warmer weather, either in Florida or next season here on the Bodkin. The picture is of the wave piercer hull.
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Kaimu was at the dock and preparations for the upcoming cruise were begun. Linen and clothing were offloaded to the laundry. Decisions have to be made about what will be essential for the next 6 months, what discretionary items to bring, given the limited storage on board. I plan to bring the larger generator and most of the power tools, the outrigger canoes, and a couple of windsurfers and rigs.
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I had a camera case with an old Minolta SLR and lenses. Could I use the lenses with a digital SLR? The answer is no, Minolta was out of that business. I found an adapter for the Minolta lenses to Canon EOS, so I began looking around for a camera body too. I was astounded by the prices for digital SLR. My nephew Louis, who has a tumblr site, is pursuing a surf and water sports photography hobby/career. He has a Canon EOS camera, the 1D mkIII. The list price is up near 10 thousand, but one could be had for less if shopped around. These are the professional high end cameras.
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An older DSLR could be had at a reasonable price and my research indicated the line started with the D30 model and continued to the D60, then 10D and on to the 70D. Each step of the way the product was improved with better resolution and automatic features. The models with single digit, like the 1D up through the 7D are the high end models. Pricing on the x0D models came down to the low $1000 range while used models are in the low hundreds. I was able to buy a model 30D for $130. Soon I was buying the required accessories, which along with lenses can add up.
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The automatic features such as auto focus, aperture, and stop down will not work with the older lenses I have. I did not use those functions, so it will be manual focus and manual f-stop. There will be gaps in the lens lineup I currently have, so any new lenses will have EOS features. These cameras have a smaller image capture area, so the lenses act like they have a longer length. A wide angle close up lens becomes a standard lens, a standard lens becomes a short telephoto, and so on. I will probably have to buy a new wide angle lens.
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I've take most of the photos for this blog using either the cell phone or one of two “tourist” snap-shot cameras. I learned long ago to get into position to frame the shot with whatever lens is on the camera, so using low end cameras with basic standard lenses was OK. Sailblogs limits photo size to 400 pixels wide, so there is no incentive to go all out for blog photos, but it's nice to be able to capture a demanding shot, capture a moment at sea, using good equipment.