3fros

A lot of automatic camera have a closeup mode (usually the flower icon). Perhaps you just need to set your camera to that mode. I have a Kodak DC5000 Digital camera and really like it. It does eat batteries, but I bought a gazillion pack at costco, so they don't cost very much. The camera was around $300 (a while ago) and I bought a 128mb compact flash card for it from costco for about $60 (They're $55 now). With the 128mb card I can take about 206 pictures on highest resolution, best mode; 581 pictures on standard resolution, best mode; and 1579 on standard resolution, good mode. If the card gets full, I can download them to the computer, write them to a CD or whatever, and just take more. I bought it also because I was tired of buying film, paying for processing, waiting for processing, having to keep negatives and not scratch them (which will still deteriorate over time). The only thing I don't like about my camera is that it only saves in JPG mode. I kind of wish it would save as TIF for lossless re-saves, but I can always save it as a TIF from the original and then have lossless re-saves. Another camera I like that came out recently is the Nikon Coolpix 5000 ($1000)

Before I upgraded my 315 I was using version 2.03. When I was trying to mark the coordinates for my cache the coordinates would bounce all over the place. I took quite a few measurements plotted them on a cad program and took the center of the biggest cluster of coordinates. My GPS would also only tell my distance to the nearest .01 miles. I liked my GPS before even with its few faults, but now I like it a lot better since I upgraded to version 3.15. The other day I was looking for a place to hide a cache. When I found a place I held my GPS over the spot and the numbers didn't change at all. Once I moved it a little bit, the GPS would stop auto averaging and the numbers would change. Mine works great ever since I uploaded the new version

Costco.com also has some pretty good prices. http://www.costco.com/frameset.asp?trg=subcat%2Easp&catid=79&subid=2109&hierid=2255&log=&NavTop=

quote:Originally posted by Moun10Bike: quote:Originally posted by 3fros: As luck would have it the local geohog (you know who you are) was on vacation You mean Hazard? http://img.Groundspeak.com/user/24_700.gif Uh, yeah...sure...Hazard...who's Hazard. My wife says that the real test is if I can get a first find once that geocacher gets back from Mexico. Too bad I been too busy at home lately because there's one in Kingston just waiting for someone to find it first

quote:Originally posted by Moun10Bike: quote:Originally posted by 3fros: As luck would have it the local geohog (you know who you are) was on vacation You mean Hazard? http://img.Groundspeak.com/user/24_700.gif Uh, yeah...sure...Hazard...who's Hazard. My wife says that the real test is if I can get a first find once that geocacher gets back from Mexico. Too bad I been too busy at home lately because there's one in Kingston just waiting for someone to find it first

quote:Originally posted by macro: I really dont want any bells or whistles. I dont need a compass, I carry one already....dont want maps, I guess all I do want is the most accurate reception I can get. I want to be able to pin point a set of coordinates. I want to be within 5 feet of where I am supposed to be looking. I want the GPSR to point to ONE location....not change its mind 5 times and point me all over the place. What is the best unit for this purpose? Is it really that much better than an Etrex and worth the money? My friend has the yellow etrex and he let me borrow it for a week to go geocaching. I hated the fact that it would lose the satellites so easily when in the trees. I bought a Magellan 315 from my brother-in-law for $80. It was brand new, he never even used it. The magellan does a LOT better at keeping a lock on the satellites in the trees. The only thing I didn't like was that it would only show the distance down to .01 miles and it would average my location if I wasn't moving fast enough because I had firmware version 2.03 on it. I borrowed another friends PC cable and installed version 3.15 on it. Now it rocks. It reads down to the foot, locks onto satellites much better in the trees, and only averages if I'm standing still

quote:Originally posted by macro: I really dont want any bells or whistles. I dont need a compass, I carry one already....dont want maps, I guess all I do want is the most accurate reception I can get. I want to be able to pin point a set of coordinates. I want to be within 5 feet of where I am supposed to be looking. I want the GPSR to point to ONE location....not change its mind 5 times and point me all over the place. What is the best unit for this purpose? Is it really that much better than an Etrex and worth the money? My friend has the yellow etrex and he let me borrow it for a week to go geocaching. I hated the fact that it would lose the satellites so easily when in the trees. I bought a Magellan 315 from my brother-in-law for $80. It was brand new, he never even used it. The magellan does a LOT better at keeping a lock on the satellites in the trees. The only thing I didn't like was that it would only show the distance down to .01 miles and it would average my location if I wasn't moving fast enough because I had firmware version 2.03 on it. I borrowed another friends PC cable and installed version 3.15 on it. Now it rocks. It reads down to the foot, locks onto satellites much better in the trees, and only averages if I'm standing still

A few weeks ago my wife had the whole week off and I was working evenings. Since I didn't have to watch junior I could take off in the morning before sunrise and be the first to find it. As luck would have it the local geohog (you know who you are) was on vacation and new caches were popping up almost daily. I got 4 first finds that week. It was great.

quote:Originally posted by Moun10Bike: I can't believe that I missed that! I guess I was looking for a button rather than a dropdown! _Jon (Moun10Bike)_ N 47° 36.649', W 122° 3.616' http://www.switchbacks.com/geocaching.html If they had given you the coordinates you would have honed in on it, right!

quote:Originally posted by Moun10Bike: I can't believe that I missed that! I guess I was looking for a button rather than a dropdown! _Jon (Moun10Bike)_ N 47° 36.649', W 122° 3.616' http://www.switchbacks.com/geocaching.html If they had given you the coordinates you would have honed in on it, right!