Randosteve's Camera Rig

When I meet people who check out TetonAT.com, they often comment how much they love the photographs. Thanks…hopefully I can get some good one’s up here soon! Though I take most of the photos here myself, often some are donated from partners I am skiing with…so I can’t take all the credit. BTW, thanks to those that are willing to share and let me post their photos…I owe you. Many people ask what kind of camera I use, and most are surprised when I tell them I use a simple point and shoot digital camera.

Rando’s point-and-shoot camera.
The Croakie is soft and feels nice when worn around the neck.

I like cameras that are small, so they can fit nicely in a pocket and are low profile when worn around the neck. Like with skis, it’s easy to get sucked into the “bigger is better” thought process in regards to cameras, so it’s important to keep things in check or else you’ll find yourself lugging around a big brick that just gets in the way and is bulky and heavy. I’ve been through a few over the years, but right now I am using a Canon PowerShot SD990 IS. It has 14.7 mega-pixels, which can fill up a memory card and harddrive fast, but I also have a 16GB card in it, so I usually don’t have to worry about filling up the memory in the camera itself. I like a camera with lots of pixels because I do a lot of cropping of most photographs before posting them. With the higher pixel rate, they turn out crisper and sharper. Yeah….most of these smaller style point and shoot digital cameras don’t shoot in RAW format (which some might say is a minus)…but it doesn’t really seem necessary for my needs, and I would bet its not for most others as well.

Most of the time I shoot in the manual mode and adjust the exposure up or down depending on the lighting. For ski shots, I often find it hard to get the timing right-on when shooting single frames, so I usually set the camera on continuous and snap off a few shots and hope I got the money-shot. I might miss the most optimum focus when doing like this, but if you miss the shot in the fist place…an ultra sharp image is worthless anyway. The SD990 IS does have a Servo-focus feature, that tracks and focuses on the subject automatically as it moves, but I haven’t totally dialed in its use just yet.

I like to store the camera on the waistbelt, instead of on shoulder strap like a tourist.

I think most smaller cameras come with only a wrist strap, but I like to make a small neck strap out of some cord and a Croakie. The Croakie is nice and soft and doesn’t bite into my skin and takes some of the jolt out when I’m skiing with it around my neck. I also like to store my camera in its case on the waist belt of my backpack, instead of the shoulder strap. Its’ a little harder to get at there, but it’s less cumbersome and is a cleaner set up. Also, if you happen to be the subject instead of the photographer, you won’t look like a tourist with a big camera case jutting out from your chest.