As a new chum in Australia in the 1960's, I might have been forgiven for a little confusion as I watched the railway workers clocking on and off at the East Perth sheds as their shifts changed...
If " Missing Link " sounds a little dramatic, consider the way that your work colleagues show you the pictures of the weddings, sports carnivals, and car shows that they attend. They pull out a $ 1000 device with a sctratched or broken glass screen on the front and a little symbol of half a battery flashing on and off. They frantically tap away at it and then swipe their fingers left, right, up, and down trying to make a 3 1/2 inch by 5 inch picture appear. Like as not, if it actually is found, it will have enough Instagram filters on it to look like an 1880 cabinet card, but you may not be able to see this before the little battery symbol winks out and the screen goes black. Then you can watch your colleague sitting in their car for half an hour until the phone charges up again. In the meantime, you can look at an album of prints...
Which to choose...
I often wonder what it is that will trigger a purchase in the camera shop. Price, of course, is often seen as the overweening factor. Novelty is another. Prestige, colour, and social status all can play a part. And sometimes it is a very subtle thing...
I spent a cheerful half hour in the Murray Street premises of Camera Electronic spending other people's money. Don't worry - no wallets were harmed in the process - no money changed hands. And I am pleased to be able to say that I did not annoy the staff with constant questions...
It is going to be winter here in Australia in a few months and all of the citizens who have forgotten what it is like to be cold and miserable are going to be reminded. The most poignant ones will be the photographers who will go out on landscape shooting expeditions, get up pre-dawn to freezing conditions on top of the local mountain range, and then try to actually poke away at the controls of their digital cameras. The cruel amongst us will laugh as their frozen little fingers try to hit the tiny buttons and fail, and their looks of anguish will be treasured. Or they could buy a pair of warm gloves just to spite us...
Choosing a back pack for exploring the less developed corners of the empire is a delicate task. One must accurately assess the opportunities that will be presented as well as the risks that will be run. This is why our featured article - the Think Tank Trifecta 8 - will be on the short-list of many adventurers. The basic idea of the Trifecta 8 is to take enough equipment onto the wild to enable you to capture images of the savages whilst not weighing you down in case you need to make a run for it. Modern thinking has provided us with mirror-less cameras and lenses of reduced size and weight and this is all to the good. Now we have a way to carry them about the person. Just as Kipling’s cavalryman spent the winter preparing his spring campaign - paring an ounce of weight where he could to extend the range of his mount - so we can reduce the amount of gear we carry. But it still needs to be accessible at short notice when we come across a...
Whenever I write an article that says the day of the giant camera outfit - and equally giant camera bag - is dead, someone writes in to complain and tell me that they have 5 DSLR bodies, 16 lenses, 8 flashes, and a lucky key ring…and they want them all to go into a bag that will fit into the overhead locker on the next Virgin flight. I welcome feedback like this from my readers, and advise them to change airlines. The RAAF runs C-130 Hercules flights to lots of places and they should be able to get that camera bag in the back door of the aircraft on a pallet. They may elect to unload it with a low-altitude pass and a parachute, but that is the chance you have to take. They have better snacks than a lot of commercial flights*. Having prepared you, let me introduce a better idea - the Think Tank Turnstyle 5 sling bag. Never mind the pun in the name - I’ve done worse here and you’ve read it. The interesting thing about this sling...
Well I promised you the up-market Peak Design messenger bag and here it is: the Everyday Messenger 13. There is enough style in this one to satisfy any boutique bag buyer.The choice of fabric from which it is constructed might be thought modest enough - a medium-brown denim - but then you need to look into some of the more up-market clothing shops to see what they do with ( and charge for ) denim. This is not a pair of jeans.The basic messenger form with top flap is simple enough to think of but there are a number of design quirks in it. With the top flap down and locked, you still get a weatherproof zipper on top to allow access to the gear compartment. These used to be referred to as "stealth" opening by some makers, but anything that has a big zipper is not all that stealthy.The sides of the case are open to small compartments - one of which has a Peak Design strap peeking from it. I've no idea what they expect you to suspend...
I do love a daily advertising column - where else would I ever get to use a heading like that in legitimate literature? It goes with the " Hack Writer " sign that I keep on my desk. Well, on to the hack - this week we are going to look at the messenger bag. It is either the humblest of camera containers...