I spent most of the week on travel, and being reminded of how much I do not like being forced to spend time with people that I would just as soon prefer to have nothing to do with. One of the unfortunate byproducts of being in a high-travel job. If only you could pick your co-workers like you could your friends. Anyway, I took a bunch of gear, and wound up getting very little time to use it. As a result, this particular installment of the post-trip gear report will be a little brief, but here goes.
Gear that went on this trip included the following:
Laptop: Dell XPS M1330
Game System: Sony Playstation Portable
Thumb Drives: Lexar 128MB
Lexar (Work) 1GB
SanDisk CRUZDrive 2GB (website)
Headphones: Sony MDR-V700s
Video: Encoded DVD Archive (Formula One Races and The 3 Stooges)
Digital Camera: Sony Alpha a350 dSLR
35-105mm Macro Zoom Lens
100-200mm Macro Zoom Lens
Sony DSC-S750 Compact Digital Camera
DAP: iPod Nano
Cell Phone: AT&T Tilt
Bag: LowePro CompuDayPack
Extras: CompactFlash Card Reader, SimpleTech 250GB Portable HD,
company Blackberry 8800, Sierra Wireless 875u Data Modem,
Plantronics Xplorer 340 Bluetooth Headset
I didn't bother mentioning the UMDs shown in the pre-flight photo. Those were one of the sets of things I did not get any time to use. Despite all of the effort downloading items to my PS3 and setting up and validating my PS3-to-PSP RemotePlay connection, I got no time to actually avail myself of it.
It was the first time on travel with the Dell, and it performed a-ok. I used it to uplink on a bridge-wing and OWA into my work email account and send a few emails we needed to get out to have some data analyzed. I watched a few iTunes videos on the flights out and back (wrapping up season one of Roswell). I am giving some thought to not bothering to purchase the extended 9-cell battery. I used to practically not care about battery power, but I have noticed that over the last year, I have become a battery snob. In fact, in some purchases it has become a prime requirement in making my final selection on a particular device. But on this trip, I was getting just over 3 hours of battery power, and that was while viewing iTunes video. Do I really need much more than that? We'll see. The $155 that Dell wants for an extended power battery is a little steep for a pack that may only buy me power that is in the margins of what is practical. I honestly do not think that I would use my laptop for more than 3 hours on an aircraft. The only benefit that I think I would gain is maybe not being so wrapped around the axle about finding a seat near an electrical outlet on layovers, which can sometimes be a pain.
The Dell's CCFL screen worked ok for doing some low-level image editing on the go, which is why I took the CompactFlash Card Reader; to transfer photos from the a350's flash-cards to the XPS. However, the crown for best image-editing screens in my current crop of laptops stays with the Gateway P-6860FX and MacBook Pro.
As expected, the Sony a350 performed perfectly for taking photos. The only real site-seeing I did was right on the harbor directly outside my hotel. My penchant for forcing myself to find the right pictures regardless of what lenses I am caring certainly exceeded my capability. On the second day of photography, I came up against the decommissioned aircraft carrier, MIDWAY, armed only with my 100-200mm MacroZoom lens. I was just not able to get far enough away from the thing to really do anything well with my camera. I did not want to go to any great lengths to find the right shot as I was with someone and did not want them to be held up waiting for me to find a perch across the street. So I was left with only shots of the stern-gate, brow banners, and control tower. Oh well, you can't win them all.
The real hero of the trip was my LowePro CompuDayPack (CDP) that I picked up just before leaving. I really wanted the company's slightly better product, the FastPack 250. However, these were only available at retail for a short time. The CDP was my lower-cost alternative to buying a combination laptop and camera bag from my preferred electronics bag stylist, booq. What I would really like is a booq Python Pack or Python Pro. But with these bags scaling upwards from $250, and me already owning more bags than one man really needs, I actually had to apply (for perhaps the first time), some limitation on my unreasonable desire for quality electronics. To pay that much to add another bag into the rotation that I would not always have a need for (as I do not take my dSLR on every trip) was just not viable. Adding the CompuDayPack for $80, however, was not a bad pitch. It would do the job, not be much skin off my nose, and could just sit there and be available if and when I needed it. Granted, once I have gotten sufficient use out of it, and once I have some time to see whether or not a booq bag is a justifiable expense further down the road, that option will be placed back on the table.
As a combination camera/laptop bag, the CDP did better than ok. Unlike some of my booq bags, it does not have a lot of extra space at the top of the bag, which causes my booq's to stick out from underneath the under-seat storage on aircrafts sometimes. It fits quite snugly beneath, and is not so bulgy along the back that it causes a hassle getting it underneath the seat. I thought that the only way I was going to get a camera and a laptop with me on travel was going to be to get a rolling hard-case that would check planeside, as I already have another carry-on that I have to take with me every time I travel. Either that package or the camera would have to go into this bag, which is why it would need to be a hard-case. With the CDP, I can carry the dSLR two to four lenses, as well as extra batteries, flash-cards, lens-hoods, and my point-and-shoot. That's just for camera gear, and all of that goes into the lower-compartment. The two upper compartments carry my laptop and all of the same electronics gear that much larger booq bags carry. In fact, if I wanted to carry a 15" laptop or smaller, and my Acer Aspire ONE netbook or Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC, the CDP could accommodate that as well. The CDP is a very vanilla looking bag, which is one of the reasons I was not a fan of going with it. It is a little less stylish than my normal gear selection. However, at least for this first trip, it proved to be an effective workhorse. Well, not everything that looks pretty is actually the best choice, in many things. This bag looks like it will be putting in a lot of miles with me, my cameras, and my laptops, average looks notwithstanding.
- Vr/G.>>