Tom got me a new action camera for my birthday. I am enjoying it.
It is a Ricoh WG-M1.
The Ricoh is based on regular cameras with the abilities of a Go-Pro. I put a regular quick release on the bottom and waaaa-laaa, it goes right on the rig I already made for the Kayak.
So far, I am rather pleased. It took me a while to figure out some of the things it does and see which view I liked better. It has Wide/Mid/Narrow lens setting and NO Zoom, but no action camera has a zoom.
Here are some shots in each style taken at 14 megapixels. If you want to see YouTube videos from it - Go here...
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The first shot here was taken using the Narrow setting on the pictures. I'm pretty sure that is what I had set on these. This is from a trip down Green River, this is a creek that we can't normally go down. The water was high, so we could get through. There is a Tiny bit of distortion on the edges and corners.
The second picture here is from Barren River Lake. This one was done set on Mid - so there is a little rounding on the edges. Oh, I have a picture on Facebook you can see the trees sort of leaning in.
This picture is from Drakes Creek and that day everything should be on Wide, because I kept having to turn the camera back on over and over again. Anyway, you can really see that this is the Wide, you can see the black edges of the lens cover (to make it waterproof). So, the center of the picture is clear, and normal, but the edges are all warped.
The auto turn off feature totally sucks. Each time you turn on the camera, all the setting go back to Wide and anything else you changed goes back to reset.
I turned that off, and life is way better.
The battery lasted longer than I expected. Plus I finally got a second one, so it's okay.
Overall, I am really happy with the camera.
The biggest problem that I ran into is trying to get an extra battery for the camera. Of course Amazon gets items listed that companies say will work and so Amazon links it to the camera.
I ordered a battery and charger for pretty cheap, I knew it was cheap and didn't expect a great and powerful battery, but I was not expecting it NOT to fit. This Battery does not fit.
The company that was selling the battery offered me a second one to fix the problem. I certainly took them up on it and noticed some other guy had the same problem that I had. Amazon notices I contacted the seller and asks me to write a review of the company.
I had already written a review on the battery and basically just said the 3rd party company is screwing everyone up.
So, I write a pretty good review of the company. I said that the company did what they could to take care of me. I had already waited 2 weeks for a battery that fit and it didn't. Luckily I did not have a big trip planned where I KNEW I needed that 2nd battery.
I mentioned that sadly the company that made the batteries was messing them up.
Then I get a phone call. I hadn't gotten around the sending the batteries back for a refund; I was busy teaching summer school. I was okay with the phone call to help me take care of the problem. At this point I had ordered the expensive Ricoh battery to make sure it fit in my camera.
But Rep for the camera company was like - Take down your review and I'll give you your money back. WHAT??? It was a good review of YOUR company, but that doesn't matter because it wasn't 5 stars. Then, East Photo, called me again because I had not had a chance to go online and take down my review of their company. She was all, "We refunded your money, why haven't you done it.
Well half of it - I hope the charger I got works?? Little nervous there - trying a 3rd party charger feels weird after the battery fiasco.
Sooooooooooooo, long story short - HA - I took down my Amazon review of the company and said fine, be whiny - I'll just say how annoying you were on my BLOG. You can't make me take this down. I know not too many people see this, but it's still on the internet. I think it is pretty crappy to tell someone I'll refund your money if you take down the review. I call BS!!!!! Complete BS!!!
Anyway- Happy summer. It's August and school starts here next week. Can you believe that?
Go check out my videos on Youtube - and I'll see you around.
