(via situationist)

Haven’t seen him in a while. Beard!

Dalas just made me aware of this mic. Made to DVXUser.com users specifications.

Getting ready to go to Seattle for a couple weeks.

I hope this new investment doesn’t disappoint.

I’m going to Florida?

Click through. There are notes.

I have many bags.

These are my 3 favorites when it comes to carrying my gear. The first one is a Crumpler messenger-style laptop/whatever bag. I’ve had this the longest of the 3 and it has carried many cameras from my Sony TRV900 to the Pana DVX100 along with my old 14” Pismo and 14” iBook laptop at the same time, endless cable, microphone stands, hard drives, tons of shit for gigs and traveling to and from Hawai’i, Europe, NYC. It is amazing that I don’t have serious back problems after using this bag for so many years.

The big bag on the end is an REI camping backpack that has a unique way of opening. It opens like a lid, down the front vertical length of the bag. This is very convenient for carrying camera gear because you can lay things down in a specific order and not worry about it getting buried under something. You open it almost like a hard case and you are able to see everything all at once. How is that possible though if it is completely hollow and a huge space is surrounded by soggy sides? There aren’t any hard sides nor dividers like a real camera bag.

Well here’s what makes this bag the coolest bag that I’ve ever found at REI. I already had a Pelican case that housed my DVX but it isn’t very comfy for traveling. The foam insert in the Pelican just happened to fit perfectly into the REI backpack. It was as if the REI folks had me in mind. It was still a little soggy so all I had to do was get some plastic core from the art store and line the inside walls and back with it. I got this idea after going to a market research thing I went to after responding to an add in Craigslist that was looking for Apple users that could give feedback about miscellaneous portable bags… anyways, our compensation for doing this was either some money or a bag. Not just any bag, Brenthaven bags. Brenthaven bags are some of the sturdiest, well made bags for Apple products. I chose a simple brown laptop bag. Upon inspecting it I noticed that what they used to line the insides of the bag to give it rigidness was simply plastic core, a material that I found at the art store for $5 a sheet.

So I took this material and cut it to fit and lined the insides then stuffed the Pelican foam insert in the bag. For the lid/flap I added a stiff cardboard and foam padding and inserted it into the zipper pocket space. This bag has MANY pockets. It almost forces me to pack too much. As you can imagine I can bring lots of stuff with me using this bag and it can get heavy fast. Luckily it is pretty comfy on the back. I can carry camera, all my batts, laptop, all my cables (100ft mic, power, etc.) power bricks, 2 hard drives, many tapes, headphones, many microphones, small mic stand (weighs a lot), MD Recorder, “some” clothes, the scorpion (shoulder mount) and a water bottle. Phew!

After realizing traveling like this will kill me sooner than later, I’ve caught myself falling over a few times, I decided to get a medium pack that can hold the minimum amount of gear that I would need for a short trip or simple project. The bag you see in the middle is my new Tamrac photo bag. The first real camera bag that I’ve ever bought. I’ve always thought that legit made-for-camera-gear camera bags weren’t worth their ridiculous high price. But I found this bag on clearance over at ProPhoto Supply near the Pearl District. I spent almost an hour comparing it and similar sized bags and narrowed it down to a Crumpler and this Tamrac. The Crumpler is a nice bag, very stylish, doesn’t look like a camera bag but I had found that I would have needed to fuss with it way too much to make it accept all the stuff I wanted to bring. Just fitting the camera alone would have needed some modifying that didn’t seem worth the trouble and then in the end the bag would still be too soggy, crumply. But man did it have the nicest padding on the back of all the bags and still pretty affordable.

I went with the Tamrac because it was still pretty low-key, it didn’t look like a camera bag except for the logo (which I can remove). The bag has the right stiffness in all the right areas. On the inside it is very modular so I can move the dividers and arrange them any which way I like. And one of the best parts is that it has a separate compartment for the laptop. This is pretty slick. If I want to just bust out the laptop to check something while at a cafe or wherever I don’t have to risk showing everyone everything that is in my bag. It was the opposite for the Crumpler. You almost have to consider the order you put things into that bag. The laptop compartment is inside the main section where all the gear lives. If you filled that main section with camera gear you would have to move some of that stuff out of the way in order to get to the flap that encloses the laptop pocket. Not good.

I think I made a pretty good choice and I’ll be going to Florida for a week with this bag to shoot a friends wedding and to see some gators and manatees. This will be a good test to see if I like it or if I should return it.

Just got new replacement earcup pads for my 10 years old 7506’s. These are actually Beyerdynamic velour replacements as oppose to Sony’s original fake leather ones. The new ones are a little bigger which means they cover my ears better and in turn sound leaks less. Also because they are velour, they won’t stick to my ears and will be cooler or warmer on my ears.