The beach is one place you can't take an underexposed shot; digital image sensors adore bright sunlight, and the bright, vivid colors of summer make sensational subjects. It's just too bad that surf, sand and spray can mean instant death to your expensive gear.
Most camera makers offer underwater enclosures for certain models. (Ikelite, at www.ikelite.com, carries most of them.) They're not cheap (US$500 to US$1,300), but you'll almost certainly be the only one on your block whose vacation shots include fish and other sunken treasure. Sony also sells a watertight Marine Pack for its DSC-P1 Cyber-shot Digital Still Camera. The nifty housing (US$249.95) allows the camera to be used to a depth of 30m.
If you find yourself close to the water but not actually under it, a more practical beach camera may be one that doubles as an MP3 player, like the Kodak mc3 Portable Multimedia Device (US$300 with 64 megabytes of storage) or Polaroid's PhotoMax MP3 (about US$200 with 16 megabytes). The pictures, at only 640 by 480 pixels, are unimpressive by today's standards -- but hey, can they play Surfin' USA?
Memory cards
The real problem shooting digitally at the beach, of course, is that all your shots are trapped in the camera. One solution is to empty out your camera's memory card periodically onto Minds(at)Work's Digital Wallet (www.mindsatwork.net), a portable, battery-operated hard-drive gizmo that holds 3, 10, or 20 gigabytes of photos (US$350 to US$550).
Or, if you're feeling particularly social, you could print out the pictures right there on the beach. Polaroid's tiny, self-contained P-500 printer (US$250) accepts most camera memory cards and prints out 2-inch-by-3-inch (5.1cm-by-7.6cm) instant photos (US$10 for a 10-shot film/battery pack). The alternative is waiting till you get home, but that, of course, is no day at the beach.
High-powered binoculars bring the world closer. Unfortunately for people not blessed with steady hands, they can also make the world seem as though it is undergoing a constant earthquake. Canon's 10x30 IS binoculars (US$699) use electronics and a special optical system to create steady, magnified images. The system can even eliminate the vibrations of a moving car, making the binoculars ideal for drive-by birdwatching.
Pedometers
The Brunton pedometer does that rarest of things for an electronic device: it makes a noise when it works. The US$19.99 unit, which emits a faint click each time its user takes a step, can record speed (in strides per minute), total number of steps taken, distance covered in miles or kilometers and the number of calories burned.
Metal detectors are still associated with retirees who comb the beach for stray quarters, but a growing number are being bought by younger customers seeking to hunt for historical relics. The BeachHunter ID from White's Electronics (www.whitesdetectors.com, US$799.95) is unusual in that it is completely waterproof and can work to a depth of 7.6m in both fresh water and saltwater, so that daring fortune hunters can search that sunken Spanish galleon for doubloons.
For those who insist on staying in touch, Motorola's Talkabout T5200 (US$49.99) offers the sound quality of a more expensive two-way radio, a 3.2km range across 14 Family Radio Service channels and 38 codes for greater privacy. Each unit also has an optional confirmation tone, which will save your children the embarrassment of saying "Roger Wilco" while they're at the snack bar with friends.
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