Animals, as photographed by a man, with a Canon 5DMKII witha $24 plastic Holga, HL-C Lens.

Cows | Milk and Grass, Milk and Grass

Bears | They bite

Pigs | Strangely clean

Goats | Generally don't follow

I’m the guy that looks after much of the social media for the camera bag company, www.thinktankphoto.com and, it’s great fun and very insightful – we have lots of amazing photographers that share content, thoughts and ideas with us on a daily basis and we also have, in my opinion, some amazing camera bags! (Don’t take my word for it, google some reviews and see what you think, or better still, check one out yourself!) …one of the othe benefits of working with TTP is that, from time to time, I can review a bag for you good people…

The Urban Disguise 35 V2.0 is a ‘petit’ camera bag* that carries a DSLR with 70-200 f2.8 attached, plus a 13.3” or 10” laptop plus “stuff”… (*small but big!)

Let me explain the 13″ or 10″ bit… inside the main section, between the main camera section and the laptop section, the wall can be undone and shifted across into the “full size dSLR position” so that you sort of end up with a shelf for the base / battery grip of your pro dSlr to rest on / against… in picture 1, below, you can see the divider in position.. and, below that, it’s folded to accomodate a Pro / Battery gripped dSLR..

Think Tank Photo Urban Disguise 35 V2.0 - Divider in position

Think Tank Photo Urban Disguise 35 V2.0 - Divider Folded

You can also see the top of a Canon 70-200 IS F/2.8 MKII lens, hood reversed, in the main / middle pocket. But, in the image above, the section to the right, just above the body cap on my lens, that’s where your battery grip or pro body would rest.

Continue reading “Think Tank Photo Urban Disguise 35 V2.0 Review” »

That’s quite a mouthful, that lens name… So what does it all mean?

L -  L series is the more professional end of the glassy goodness from Canon (who make more than just photo copiers!) Sometimes they are a grey’ish white’ish color, sometimes they are black with a little red strip around them… not to be confused with a can of chilled Jamaican beer, namely Redstripe…

70-200mm – Well, that’s the focal length isn’t it.. from what once would have been where the film sits out to your focal point…. so, 70 is good for wider portrait type shots from the front of a stage whilst 200 gets you right into the artist nostril for a good poke around… everyone loves “up the nose” shots, right?

f/2.8 – This is called aperture… You might hear someone say “Shoot wide open” what you’re talking about is opening your aperture (the smaller f number) right up as far as it will go. With a lot of lenses, you will see something like f/3.5-5.6 or so, if it’s a zoomy type lens, if it’s a “prime” lens (one that needs leg powered zoom) you most always get an single aperture value like f/1.4 f/1.8 and so on… The lens here has a single aperture value of f/2.8 which means that it’s a “pretty fast lens” all the way from 70mm to 200mm – which makes it perfect for concert photography and stuff where light is a factor*.

IS – contrary to popular belief, this isn’t “IS” ..as in “The Canon 70-200L f/2.8 “is” MKII ….is a mkii… it’s IS as in Image Stabilization… There’s two types to choose from.. this way and that way, but, again, contrary to popular belief will not make your photos sharper than a cheap legal secretary if your arms are made of orange jelly (jello, America, jello) –It will help you when the light is less than perfect and your shutter speed has to pop down low and go, go..go

MKII – That means that there was a MKI…. it had a couple of differences, most notably a different IS system…two types, not just one… and it’s more expensive, but it is lovely.

So – First Impression? I’ve not been able to take any serious photos (where I’m pulling a serious face as I discharge the electrons) but a couple of quick snaps in less than favourable light, of my little baby boy, Sebatian, and I was really very happy, excited and wanting to point it at the nearest musician… that will come!

Build quality is pretty typical of an expensive L series lens… tank like… it’s heavy, it’s going to hurt after three songs, but it’s going to be worth it… Sharp, Fast and white enough to make me stand out to a crowd of would be lens thieves…

It just feels right.

Images to come – stay tuned.

*when is light not a factor?

What has it done to us?

Well, I found that having a camera phone with a half decent (for a phone!) camera, that it saw me doing a lot of “snapping” on my iPhone, and getting out my dSLR for the more serious stuff.. But “why” yeah, a lot of people say, if you have your dSLR, why don’t you just use it for every shot? Well, sometimes I just don’t want to, I just want to snap and send or upload or tweet or flickr or facebook… you know, not process and decide and be serious…. I’ve found, over the last four days that having a very convenient, always with me iPhone with a decent (for a phone!) camera, has been really great!… Here’s a few pictures from the last four days…

Does convenience outweigh quality?

17:33pm UK Time…Ready, Set… GO!

Dear Ted, welcome to gtvone.com — This is my personal blog, read by oh… maybe 30 people! [sad times!] I’m due a call with you this evening about your website that I find very exciting for photographers everywhere.

One thing I did note with the website where the software lives is that there is no option for a trial – so I thought, what better way to try it out than to “steal” one of your images and post it here on my blog and see how long it took you to comment below… I hope you don’t find this tooo cheeky!

Amazing photograph by Ted VanCleave

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