So I got this new, waterproof camera because I'm lazy, or at least, too anxious about dropping my phone in the drink while kayaking, but finding the protective joto, which serves as both a waterproof & flotation device for the phone, so frustrating to use that I take the phone out of it every time I want a shot. Joto's are the best solution for keeping phones safe while on a kayak, or at least that seems to be the consensus, but they don't work if the phone is lying naked on your skirt.

The olympus OM-TG7 also seems to be the consensus as most sensible camera for kayakers with my issues, as I discovered when reading a local mailing list discussing PFDs^[2] I read a few reviews, and concluded the received wisdom was correct, and since the camera is also designed to be shockproof, I thought it a good choice for kayaking in general, and surf camp in particular, because, yanno, pounding waves. Not to mention the option of filming my ever-failing rolls from an underwater POV.

But how does it compare to my lumix, or even my pixel pro 6?

That's what I wanted to know, so just for kicks I took these recent journalling pieces and photographed them with the TG7, using^[3] the auto mode.

To be absolutely fair, I'd have to take test images under the same conditions for all three cameras, and who knows? I may do that^[4] ...after I get better at manual focus, at any rate: until then, it won't be a fair comparison, because operator error will be so much higher with the TG7. But my gut feeling is that the IQ is not as good as the lumix, possibly not even the PP6, but it sure has something the other two don't: it's a true shirt pocket that will fit easily into the front pocket of my PFD, and with the addition of a bright red flotation strap, is gonna be much more water friendly. Convenience, for me, outstrips image quality.

Plus, it has a microscope/1cm focus feature and built in focus stacking, that I didn't even know about when I bought it. Awesome! Plus a starlight mode (to be used with a tripod, or at least, a nice flat rock...)

Enough of all this boring photographic guff, what about the art? Well, my office was a horrid mess, and I wanted to tidy it up, and because I'm not very good at that, I often find it's easier to tidy some stuff up into finished, or at least semi-finished art, than figure how to put it away, stickers^[5] especially). I had, several days ago, been faced with a bunch of 12x12 Disney themed scrapbook pages that I could've just donated to someone who would honestly enjoy them, as I could not, for assorted reasons, just use them myself.

But just as spending hours making art rather than just filing the components away is easier for me, so too was using the denigrated paper as substrates for latex based surfacing...especially as the paint can lid, rusted to uselessness, meant the can wasn't properly closed, and spilled paint all over the tub holding my coloured latex pint cans which in turn had a dried spill from magenta printer ink cartridge from a dead printer that I was gonna some day use to dye that brown packing paper to make homemade giftwrap...

I really do feel I have that Depression era save-everything-in-case-it-might-be-useful-someday mindset down. Cold. So I scraped^[6] the spilled, pink tinted, rust flecked housepaint over these dizzy designs; then later cut them down to 8.5 x 11, for journalling, leaving me with scraps, of which one is the main block. In a similar way, I actually liked the grey and pink dizzy logo, made into a handsome, circle based, allover design. The black and white sticker, which I thought was really cool, was on a box from NRS because for some reason they really, really wanted the box to stay upright, so it not only had the arrows (on two sides!) pointing up, but this diamond indicating the horizontal axis (I rotated it 45 degrees, obviously).

The other rather interesting-to-me component is the red strip with the white crinkles. This was from the envelope, IIRC from the wireless hotspot I ordered for my 2024 trip to Japan, and was the bit that peeled up from opening it. Or something. When I split the paper to remove most of the thickness, the red ink shattered from bending stress, yielding this enticing pattern, which I accented with some red tape from something-or-other and some red and white checkered washi tape. A commercially made embossed business card combined with dekop's embossing sakura punches used on the pink ‘background’ of some dizzy stickers finish things off. (I guess after I finish punching out my own stickers from the available backgrounds, I'll donate themickey & minnie mouse stickers that are the actual product;)

(The top journal page was actually made second, features the arrows from the NRS drysuit repair kit, more dekop punchouts and sticker waste:)

Of the 8 or 10 pages I spent most of Easter (literally—from about 10 or 11 in the morning to 11:30 at night, less meals) these early ones were definitely the most successful.

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Unless otherwise noted, text, image and objects depicted therein copyright 1996--present sylvus tarn.

Sylvus Tarn