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Editors note: Click photos for larger version - where picture numbers are referenced, you can see the picture number by hovering your mouse over the photos.

Fishing photography primarily consists of either snapshots -- proof you were fishing, caught some fish, or caught the fish of your life -- or a more ambitious attempt to capture a particular moment such as a sunset, a river canyon, a school of fish; occurrences which by their sheer beauty, or rarity, have the potential to reach and delight a larger audience. While the requirements for a simple snapshot camera can be easily defined, the complexity of one's camera needs for more ambitious photographs is virtually unlimited.

What kind of camera ?

The best camera to have is the one most likely to be within reach and ready to snap a shot when the Hindenberg blows up, or in this case, when the school of false albacore start plowing into the bait ball hiding under your boat. If you want a picture that could make the cover of a national magazine, the camera that can achieve that fast snapshot is NOT the one you are likely to be carrying. These are the two extremes – rapid convenience or high quality perfection. Let's look at them because everything else fits in-between.

The perfect, always there, fool-proof fishing camera must be:

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1. small and light
2. ABSOLUTELY WATERPROOF! (“Water Resistant” does not cut it)
3. Have auto focus and auto exposure
4. Have a built-in automatic flash
5. Be rugged and indestructible

Such a snapshot camera shouldn't require any special consideration. I have retrieved mine from floating around in the bilge innumerable times. It should always get the snapshot, yet will rarely capture a high quality photograph desirable or capable of great enlargement.

Here is my snapshot fishing camera. It is several generations of technology old but because I use it so infrequently I cannot justify replacing it. But it is always there and ready. Drop it in the water? Heck, I snorkel with it!

The minimum requirements for a professional quality fishing camera consistently capable of taking a great photograph if one should present itself are:

1) high resolution lenses, preferably a zoom lense

2) high resolution recording medium, whether film or digital sensor chip. Resolution is like money. You can't ever have too much!

3) It must, absolutely must accept a polarizing filter

4) It must have a through-the-lens (and filter) viewing system (and that means a single-lens-reflex type or SLR)

5) It must have a built in or attachable fill flash

6) Must be protectable! By that I mean it must fit into a reasonably sized waterproof, hard sided case! (Picture 2)

Not necessary but desirable would be auto-focus and auto-exposure. By this point forget small, light, foolproof, and inexpensive. Such a camera is expensive, heavy, fairly large, and requires protection and care.

Photo #2 and #3 are of my camera case. Both the snapshot and serious cameras described above go with me everywhere. The water-proof, indestructible case filled with gear weighs 20 pounds. It is heavy, a constant hassle, especially in airports, and must be dealt with somewhere in boats. But, given the current existing alternatives, I wouldn't have it any other way.

My waterproof point-and-shoot would seem likely to be the most used, but exactly the opposite. I leave the water after a successful day of fishing having caught fish and taken photographs. Within a few days I have forgotten the fish, and I deal with, use, look at, and in many different ways share the photographs for the rest of my life.

Film or Digital?

Digital technology has revolutionized photography because it lets you cheaply and easily manipulate, enlarge, and print digital files. The technology is moving so fast that it is difficult to write about it and be up to date with the latest developments.

There are still a few situations where film is favored:

• Speed. Digital cameras are slow! Most must "boot up" and all must pause while they "save" the shots to the recording medium; terrible characteristics where shooting speed is critical for shooting fast moving action such as a leaping tarpon or billfish .
• Slides are still very useful for group presentations (digital projectors are stilluncommon and expensive), and slides are still the preferred medium of professional photo-journalism.
• Because nothing has the take-your-breath-away visual impact of a beautifully projected Fujichrome, Kodachrome image. For sharpness and color saturation, digital does not come close. Yet. From a slide, once one has a good scanner, one has all the options open to them. The downside to film is the expense of the film stock and development costs, being stuck with one "speed" for an entire 20- or 36-exposure roll, and protecting the film from age and heat.

Types of Film

Consumer films are characterized by fool-proof characteristics. They are high speed (high ASA, ISO rating), wide exposure latitude (one can “miss” the proper exposure by four stops and still get a reasonable photograph), shade and contrast tolerant, and chemically stable. They have a long shelf life and are temperature (heat) tolerant. They tend to be grainy which limits sharpness/resolution and enlargement ability. You will always get good pictures, but rarely great pictures. In some scenes with both full sunlight and complete shade they are better than the professional films. They are also cheaper. Between slide and print films, print film is the more tolerant and bland of the two in all these parameters. Slides always have more color.

Professional films are characterized by slower ISO/ASA speeds, finer grain (and that means resolution!), higher contrast and deeper color saturation. They necessarily have a narrower exposure latitude. The best are the most touchy. They are also chemically unstable, deteriorate month-by-month unless refrigerated, and can be completely destroyed by the temperatures in a hot car or trunk on a sunny day, before or after exposure. They are more expensive. In short, they are a royal pain in the neck to work with. But they can achieve what makes photography worthwhile. There are a few special things in life everyone should experience: unconditional love, the birth of their child, and the projection of their first well exposed, professional "chrome" slide. (Fujichrome Velvia and Provia, and various Kodachromes).

Right now the photographic market is flooded with excellent medium resolution digital cameras, some of them waterproof, functionally bullet-proof, and otherwise satisfying all of the best characteristics of the snapshot cameras without the more onerous characteristics of the professional cameras. What about them? The biggest two problems, that, if solved, would let me stop carrying a 20-pound camera case all over the country are resolution and the polarizing filter issue, and I think it is only a matter of time before the resolution is solved (it is, but I mean affordably). So that leaves the polarizing filter problem.

About the author...

Raised in Seattle, Wa, I began fly fishing at age 13 and now, 45 years later, I am still amazed at how much there is to learn and how many more horizons there are still to cross. During my college years in Cambridge, MA and medical school in Boston in the 1960's I fell in love with salt water fly fishing, Striped Bass, and Cape Cod. I eventually chose to live in Oregon primarily to take advantage of the, then (now long gone), world class Striper fishery in the Umpqua River and still be among the trout, salmon, and steelhead of my youth. As a “starving” student I simply couldn't afford to continue to pursue photography until it was simplified and made affordable by computers, even before digital cameras, and picked it up again about the time the striper population on the east coast rebounded. Now I fish the east coast on the Cape, NC, and Florida almost more than I do in Oregon