Cameron Stokes’s Blog

Ever since I got my DSLR earlier this year, a Pentax K10D, I’ve been needing a bag for it. I went without one for a while, wrapping the camera in shirts or towels when taking it places, but that was obviously cumbersome and I was worried the camera would get damaged at some point. After buying a Gorillapod and wanting to get a new lens, specifically the smc PENTAX FA 50mm F1.4 prime, I decided it was time to get a bag to hold everything.

For my birthday, my girlfriend picked out a Tamrac 5256 bag from the local Wolf Camera. The bag was good quality and seemed perfectly fine for holding the camera, however not liking to buy things without researching first and also not liking to buy things at brick & mortar stores when online stores are generally much cheaper, we returned the bag and I began my research.

My main criteria for picking a bag was something that could be used for everyday use and also for travelling, something that could hold my camera, a few lenses, and my laptop, a 15″ Macbook Pro. For holding a camera and a laptop, I wanted a bag that had a compartment specific to each, something with padded dividers that could be arranged to fit various cameras and lenses, and also a compartment specific to a laptop. I read several photography sites, mainly Digital Photography Review and PentaxForums.com, looking for bag reviews. Lowepro was a name that came up often, also Crumpler, Tamrac, and to a lesser extent Kata.

I looked at Crumpler first, given the more modern styling of their bags over Lowerpro and Tamrac. The bags look really nice, seem very clever in their compartments and features, and are highly recommended all over the internet. I especially liked the Whickey and Cox bag, despite the weird name, however I couldn’t justify the high price of the bag. Even at Amazon (though sold by Adorama Camera), the bag was $176. In addition, Crumpler has an absolutely horrible website which just out of principle made me not want to buy anything from them. I linked to the HTML version of their site above just to save everyone from its awfulness.

After giving up on Crumpler, I started looking at Lowepro. Their “sling” bags really piqued my interest, specifically the “slingness” and the side pocket access for the camera. The only sling version they make that can hold a laptop is the SlingShot 350 AW. It looked as though this would make for quick and easy access to the camera, especially while “on the go.” This photo demonstrates it well:

Lowepro SlingShot 350 AW

Having read some positive reviews of the Lowepro bags and liking the look and features of the bag I thought I had found the bag for me. It was cheaper than the Crumpler bag, but still expensive at $145 from Amazon. I ordered it anyway and after unpacking it had two immediate thoughts; it was huge and it was ugly. Thinking I could get past this, I loaded it up with my camera and laptop and tried it on. I found the sling style of it quite awkward given its size. It was so big that it was difficult to pull around the side of my body and use the side pocket to get the camera. This was the main selling point of the bag for me and without this, the SlingShot 350 lost its glamor. All in all the bag was well made, fit everything I had with room to spare, but I could not get past the size and looks of it. I decided to send it back and keep looking.

The next bags I looked at were from Kata. Their website, as well as reviews from PentaxForums.com, led me to the DR-467 Digital Rucksack. This bag was a backpack instead of a sling bag like the Lowepro but fit my original criteria and did not have the utilitarian look of the Lowepro bag.

Kata DR-467 Digital Rucksack

After more reading, I decided to order it, again from Amazon. It ended up being about half the price of the Lowepro which was an unexpected plus.

After a couple days it arrived and while unpacking I knew I could stop looking. It looks great, feels great, and fits everything I have. It’s perfect. The compartment for the camera actually pulls in and out like a drawer when opened which is really cool (it’s hard to tell this in the photo above), the laptop compartment is easy to access and the fancy TST Rib protection seems to protect the laptop well which was definitely a concern of mine. The bag has a large pocket above the camera compartment which could fit several accessories and had a few other smaller pockets for odds and ends. My Gorillapod fit in the top pocket fine and could also be strapped to the outside if needed.

I’ve had the bag for about 5 days now and have already traveled with it. I packed it the laptop, camera, my new lens, Gorillapod, 2 hardback books, and still had room in the top pocket and camera compartment for more. It felt great when carrying and everything felt safe and secure. I found myself wearing it out even when I didn’t need to just because I liked it so much.

I’ll try to post a more detailed review in the future, but for now my search has ended. I’m very happy with my purchase and would recommend it to anyone looking for a bag for the camera and laptop. The Kata DR-467 is a great buy.

I’m in Smithfield, NC for the next day or so visiting my grandmother for Christmas.  We’re in the Holiday Inn Express down the road which unfortunately does not have wireless internet even in 2008 even though it says it does.  This has not stopped my brother and I from creating our own wireless internet by plugging in his laptop and using Mac OS X’s easy Internet Sharing configuration.  I’m now surfing wirelessly and watching The Office from my Netflix Watch Instantly queue despite the hotel trying to keep us down.  Oh yea…Merry Christmas!

I bought a Kill A Watt awhile back, though technically not a Kill A Watt but a Seasonic Power Angel, but since I bought it I haven’t done much with. I’ve mainly used it for quick measurements of my computer or monitor, nothing “scientific.” This past week I decided to figure out how much energy was used in my daily coffee-making ritual.

Seasonic Power Angel

I plugged in the Power Angel on a Saturday morning and alternated plugging in my coffee maker (a Technivorm-Moccamaster KBT) and coffee grinder (a Delonghi I can’t seem to find a link to now) to measure how much energy was used by both. I made 7 cups (that sounds like a lot but is our usual morning amount) and did the same everyday for the next 7 days.

All in all, the week’s worth of coffee making consumed 0.56 killowatt hours (kWh) of power. Given current prices of $0.088 per kWh from Marietta Power, this comes out to $0.04928 for the week or roughly $2.56 for the entire year.

Not having conducted an observation like this before, I’m surprised at the results, I was expecting higher numbers. A nickel a week to make coffee is well worth it.

I decided to upgrade to Wordpress 2.7 despite my usual reservations in performing any type of upgrade.  Unfortunately, I was correct in my reservations and had a few issues during the upgrade.  Despite the very manual process of performing backups and installing the new version I still ran into some issues that I may have anticipated but nevertheless ran into.

After changing the wp-config.php file for my database I let the Wordpress script make the necessary database changes and then logged into the administration site.  I was quite impressed by the new interface but my enthusiasm soon faded when I tried to access my blog and was presented with a very unfriendly blank page.  After reading several different forum posts regarding various reasons for the blank pages experiences after upgrading, I went to the Themes page in the administration portion of the application and saw a message that my current theme wasn’t supported by 2.7 and that it had been disabled.  I was now back to the default Wordpress theme.  After googling I found that the MistyLook theme I had been using didn’t support the new Wordpress version, at least not yet.

Having the default theme I was able to see that the photos I had uploaded in my previous posts, weren’t working.  This was easy to fix as I had actually followed the backup instructions above and just copied the uploads folder back into the new install.  The next hiccup I rant into was that all of my plugins had disappeared.  I copied the plugins folder over from my backup, re-activated them and everything seemed fine, except I had to re-enter my site keys for WP-reCAPTCHA.

Now that everything seemed to be functional, I started looking for a new theme.  I settled on the Big City theme which I actually like better than my previous theme.

Big City Screenshot

I removed the default logo and would like to eventually replace the skyline rendering with perhaps a rendering of the Atlanta skyline.  We’ll have to see how good my Photoshop skills are.

All in all the upgrade didn’t go too bad. I didn’t lose any data, only spent about an hour on the upgrade and fixing the issues, and am now on the latest and greatest version with a cool new theme. Some of the issues were probably due to me reading the upgrade instructinos too quickly but the upgrade process could probably be streamlined by the Wordpress developers.  Hopefully I won’t have to upgrade again for a while.