As I Xi It

Taking aquarium photography to a new dimension.

Like snorkling, but not

Ever since I saw pics of the 70-200mm mug on the web, I’ve wanted a lens beverage receptacle.

When I got home this afternoon, I was greeted with a big box on the porch. Jac had sent Kamil and I the coolest gifts ever!! Mindblowingly phenomenal!

On the way to sushi, Randy, Kwok and I torutured Kamil into guessing what the gift was. Oh the joy. Lol.

Now I have something appropriate to drink out of while editing my photos.

Can you spot the mug?

Champion indeed!

Does this not look like the bizzarest contraption? Click here.

It reminds me of kids putting hooded jackets on their heads and running around pretending to be superheroes.

…what I need is a Billingham, I don’t have one of those.

I was just reviewing the photo of my collection of camera bags and noticed that they’re all pretty neutral colours. I ought to throw in a red Crumpler into the mix.

Believe it or not, some of the bags are empty! Guess I need to fill in the spaces with some “L” goodness. Shiny, shiny!

Bag Collection

For a while now, I’ve been thinking about getting a full backpack which would be able to carry both of my largest lenses. Seeing as I quite liked the back-opening of the Flipside 200 and Primus, the Flipside 400 seemed the logical choice. It had fallen in price on Amazon and seeing as Chirstmas was around the corner, I thought, why not?

I got it in a very understated pine green colour which looks quite at home in both urban and rural environments. Makes a change from all the black camera bags out there.

Being a Lowepro bag, the padding’s ample and like the Primus, it has a comfy waistbelt. It seems to fit me better than the Primus with a shorter back length. I quite like how there’s a back opening compartment to keep pricey lenses away from sticky fingers and the large outer front pocket for other bits and pieces like maps and pens.

There are Sliplock slots on both sides of the bag for lens cases and things to expand the bag’s capacity, I’d probably put my GPS on one of them. There are also two generous elasticated mesh pocket on either side which fits a 0.6 L Sigg bottle quite nicely. Splendid.

It’s rather stiff at the moment and needs to be broken in like my worn and well travelled Primus.

Official specs here.

Seeing as its been snowing rather frequently in London and I’ve got that upcoming trip up into Swedish Lapland, I ordered myself a set of Manfrotto snow shoes. Although I have a set of Slik and Gitzo tripod legs, I went for the Manfrotto because a) they were cheaper and b) Gitzo ones were out of stock at the place where I ordered my new ball head. The Manfrotto and Gitzo snow shoes look the same anyway.

You don’t have to use the snow shoes just for snow, I’m sure they’ll work pretty well on dry sand and other soft sediment. They just increase the surface area between the tripod and terrain to reduce sinking. However, I don’t recommend them for use on smooth surfaces such as laminate flooring as they’ll just slide around. I suppose they could be used for the new sport of tripod curling.

They’re reasonably cheap at around £15 and get the job done.

I’ve previously reviewed the Manfrotto 486RC2 ball head here which sits on my Slik Pro 340DX. Since getting my fancy Gitzo tripod legs as reviewed here back in May 2009, I needed a more substantial ball head to go with it.

Now, I could’ve gone all out and brought an Arcaswiss, Kirk, Really Right Stuff or Markins ball head, but given that my heaviest camera combo weighs in at under 5 kg, I thought it’d be overkill to splurge £300+ on a ball head. I opted for the more modestly priced Manfrotto 468MGRC2 ball head at just over £150.

Like the 486RC2, this 468MGRC2 oozes solidness. I have no doubt that if you were to lob it at someone, it’d take them down fairly easily, assuming your aim was accurate. My favourite thing about this ball head is the friction control which stops the camera from flopping about, something which I found rather annoying with the other ball head. The ball rotates smoothly and locks down tight without much effort. Given that I’m planning to use this Gitzo/Manfrotto combo while I’m off to Swedish lapland next month, the large rubberised knob (tee hee) would be easy to operate with gloves on. I’d assume it’d be easier to use for arthritics too.

The 468MGRC2 has a rated minimum operating temperature of -30^oC so I’m hoping that it’ll hold out while I’m shooting the aurora in in the arctic circle where temperatures are reported to reach -35^oC at night. If it does lock up, then I’d have to bind one of those self heating hand warmers to it.

I don’t know why, but I just felt like getting a new tripod. At first I settled on the Manfrotto 055CXPr03, carbon fiber, tall enough for me, flip locks and had that really cool horizontal centre column. Upon consultation with a fellow photographer, he suggested a Gitzo GT3530 or something like that. I thought about plunging down some of my hard earned cash for one, but then came across the Gitzo GT2531EX, it was like the Manfrotto crossed with the Gitzo. At first the lack of flip-locks concerned me, but having had a look at it in the flesh, it didn’t seem so bad.

Anyway, in the end I decided on the Gitzo Explorer. It’s rather smart. The box it comes in is pretty neat and the legs themselves are in a bag, a bit like those you get for posh shoes. There’s even a little LCD cleaner with the Gitzo logo on. It’s easily the most flexible tripod I’ve come across. There are no set angles for the legs and they’re pretty robust when locked down. The moveable centre column does what it’s suppose to do and does it rather well, there’s even a little retractable hook at the end for you to hang a counterweight for additional stability.  I’ve mounted my Manfrotto 486RC2 ball head since its the only ball head I have and the whole package from first glance seems fairly easy to deploy.

Of course, you can’t really give a true impression until you’ve actually used it out in the field. I guess there’ll be a part 2 coming up soon.