[Waterwindpowderrock]

I shoot gore in my superstar & run a watershed bag, housing a 50d with a cheap shitey sigma 18-200 lens (towel wrapped around camera & a shammy for me to dry my face off with in the bag). Bag is biner'd to the seat rope & sits where the thruster goes for playboating, works great & size is minimal with the little lens.

I have been shooting this run with every **D series camer since the 10d & have never had one fail me, dropped my 10d in the water below scissors once, dropped my 30 at cataract creek above green mtn res. on some rocks, never lost a shot due to being a dumazz (aside from forgetting batteries or cards, yeah, those have lost me a few shots)

that 40D that twitch mentioned, that one's been down gore a bunch too
(btw, I need my gearbag & wide angle back, got to shoot a wedding in a coupe weeks...)

I use a canon G9 in a small peli case velcro'd to the bottom of the hull behind my seat for a backup (also biner'd to me seat somehow), if you're an SLR type of guy but need to cut down on size, the G series is your ONLY choice, all the other pointers are crap in comparison. (don't know about the other brands, I'm sure there are comparables to the G)

I used to carry quality optics on the river, but after lens #3 (2 kinda cheap, 1 mid grade) I started going for the cheapies, I tend to get 2 good seasons out of a cheap lens, but most intelligent people would get much more than that out of those lenses.

I'll have another D series for sale this fall if you want to wait. Hopefully I'll avoid dropping this one!

As for the Canon, Nikon debate, both are great mfg's, anothing else leaves you starving for proper selection of lenses, new or used, in the long run.