The least enjoyable part of the trip is getting there. It’s an all day affair starting with a short hop from our home in Grand Rapids to Chicago followed by a very long, 9-hour flight from Chicago to Honolulu.

Clouds covered most of the flight path to the islands. These sparkling beaches of Oahu (to the right) are about the only sites that we see along the way and this only upon leaving Honolulu on a 45 minute connecting flight to Kona.

And owing to a six hour time difference, we arrive in time for dinner.

Being in the middle of the Pacific, there’s water galore everywhere. The next morning, with our snorkeling gear in tow we head down to one of the local beaches.

For this trip, I’ve taken a camera that can be used underwater. I’ve never invested the thousands of dollars needed for a “real” underwater outfit, but this Olympus Tough 6000 will do the trick.

The Big Island is surrounded by shallow reefs lined with coral. Many of the popular beaches attract bathers for this exact reason. The coral is teeming with tropical fish and wildlife just a few feet below the water’s surface.

Without heavy scuba equipment and expensive deep water photo gear, my small, relatively inexpensive camera makes it possible for me to record these amazing wonders of the ocean. Here’s some of my “catch” made simply by gently kicking my flippers, goggles and snorkel facing downward and camera in hand.

Above, without the onlookers, the group of alligators appear in a more “wild” environment except for the inclusion of the wood railing in the foreground.

Left, I’ve again isolated the creature from the human elements. I think this method enhances the wildness factor.

The two “new” built-in features are the GPS receiver and its wireless capability. Having GPS automatically adds location information (latitude, longitude and altitude) to the EXIF data of the images.

My interest in the 6D was to see how its wireless capabilities worked.

For this review I’ll describe my experience connecting with a smartphone. For wireless, there’s a few preliminaries that have to be performed.

The first is to give the 6D a wireless identifier. This step takes just a few minutes using the menus on the back of the camera. Here I’ve set it up with the identifier “Arnie 6D“.

By completing this step, the 6D is now its own wireless station.

You’ll first have to install the free EOS Remote app for your particular smartphone.

In my case, I installed the app onto my iPhone.

Using the Settings menu on the iPhone, you connect to the camera with Wi-Fi. Look for the camera’s identifier – Arnie 6D.

For security, you’ll have to enter the Encryption Key to establish the connection.

It can perform two different functions.

Firstly, you can view the images that have been captured with the 6D.

Secondly, you can use the smartphone as a remote shutter release.

Choosing Camera Image Viewing brings us to a screen on the smartphone that looks like this.

By default the thumbnails are ordered by date but this can be changed to order them by rating (1 to 5 stars) or folder (if multiple folders are on the camera’s SD card).

In addition to the thumbnail, the technical data each image is also presented. This is helpful if you plan to evaluate the images while still in the field with the purpose of adjusting the settings.

• Download – to smartphone (1920 x 1280 jpg)
• Email – send image with a text message
• Rate – 1 to 5 stars
• Delete – removes it from the camera

Your smartphone can be used as a remote shutter release with extra capabilities.

Here I’ve set the camera on a tripod.

Choosing Remote Shooting activates the 6D Liveview. The smartphone then presents the same view as the camera.

By tapping on the different areas of the smartphone screen, I can change the autofocus.

Depending on the 6D’s mode setting I can also change the ISO, shutter speed, aperture and exposure compensation using the smartphone.

Another simple tap and the camera shutter is released.

And of course, the just captured image is immediately available if I change back to EOS Remote’s Camera Image Viewing.