Friday I felt very unwell with a temperature/virus and didn't get up until mid afternoon. Woke up on Saturday and felt okish.
On closer inspection mid-week, I realised my Lowepro bag was far heavier than I first thought and was 2400g before I put anything in it! Because of the 15kg weight limit for all luggage on the Airtask flight to Fair Isle, I had to have a lighter camera bag than this. I had purchased this much too quickly, which had now cost me time and petrol. Cruised to Wex Photographic, returned the Lowpro bag and spent a long time choosing the right bag. I discovered an awesome bag – a bag that Wex had only just got in – a very expensive bag, but it was a brilliant design. There are two sizes, the '31 litre' being the larger version.
I purchased the WANDRD PRVKE 31 Backpack Photography Bundle in black – see the picture, link to all their bags and a promotional video on the Wex site. This bag is only 1500g! There are so many elements to this bag that I loved! Basically it isn't ideal for someone that has massive lenses, but if you have a 300mm lens, it fits (attached to camera body) very nicely indeed – on its side. The camera section is at the bottom half of the bag and has a separate 'camera cube' section, which can be removed entirely to create a normal backpack. There is room in the cube section for a couple more lenses, maybe more. The 21 litre size version was too tight for my camera body and lens and there was very little room in the camera cube for other lenses, which is why I choose the larger version and there is only 200g weight difference between the two bags anyway. There is a side opening to take out the camera without having to open the entire bag. This side opening, has a zipped section with internal pockets for batteries and cards.
On the opposite side is a typical pocket to put a drinks bottle/flask. The front of the entire bag has a side zipper, which you could put anything in from a newspaper, magazine or documents etc. The main camera section opens up from the back, so this is good for security – this also holds the two large pockets to place a 15" laptop and an iPad. Next to the camera cube is a large zipped section, where you could put other lenses if you didn't have enough space in the main camera cube. There is a small side section to keep keys in and on top of the bag is a large zipped fleecy pocket. There is a also a two pocket section to keep a passport etc in at the bottom/back of the bag.
The most interesting feature of this bag, is the top extendable rolled section, which gives you tons of space for food, clothes etc. There is a waterproof, elasticated cover, which covers the entire bag (even with the extendable section at its max) and is securely held in place by a strap, which secures around the back of the bag. There are also padded waist straps and two other straps which can be used for many purposes – all of these straps can be taken off/on, as required. The tote handles are magnetic which is good and these handles make the bag easy to grab, when walking on/off a plane. I was very impressed how comfortable this bag was – it felt far more comfortable than my old Lowpro bag and looks really cool!
Its an expensive buy, but worth the money in my opinion. I love the way, the designers have developed a bag that utilises the space well – a typical camera bag has sections for loads of lenses – not many people have that many lens and these sections either don't get used or are stuffed with non photographic items such as gloves etc – its a well thought out bag, which will appeal to many.
Huge thanks to Chris who works in the store, who had kindly brought me several bags to look at and also seemed intrigued by this new unique bag, which he had not seen until today and was thinking of purchasing one himself.
I then headed to the coast. On route I dropped into CleySpy to ask Andrew to set up my new Swarovski VPA Universal Smartphone Adapter + AR-S Adapter Ring for scope + AR-B Adapter Ring for binoculars with my Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max. This took far longer to sort than we imagined! Andrew has already set one of these up for the same phone for someone else quite quickly as that person uses theirs for taking pictures. I use mine mainly for doing videos. Long, long story short...... this phone can not be used for phone-scoping pictures and video, without re-setting the adapter, which is not something you want to keep adjusting and especially when you are usually in a a situation where you want to take a picture or a video fairly quickly. So I had to choose video or picture and so obviously I choose to have it set up for video. Andrew is far more technically minded than myself and is an Apple Wiz! My new phone has lenses and you can only set up the adapter to use one lens – after lots of trial and error, Andrew realised that the phone uses all three lenses simultaneously. Setting the adaptor at the top lens for telephoto, meant you could take pictures, but when you switched to video it went black! It was all very frustrating indeed! Setting the adapter on the bottom lens on telephoto meant that I can only use video – I can live with that, but I hadn't expected that from this phone. The binocular adapter ring is brilliant, this means I will be able to video birds through my binoculars when its too far to photography with my 300mm lens – I will hopefully be laying down to keep the binoculars steady in the winds and gales on Fair Isle! Huge thanks to Andrew, who took spent so much time trying to sort this all out – I'm so glad I got him to do this – I would have lost patience!
BIRD NEWS
Saw my first Yellow-browed Warblers of the Autumn, two together in one binocular view, in the far willows at the end of the lower path at Walsey Hills NOA. No chance of any pictures though, they were both flitting about like flies, but fabulous to see! Several Chiffchaffs seen, along with Redwing, Blackbird and a big party of Long-tailed Tits.
Walked to Gramborough Hill with Eddie (very late afternoon) and saw a Rock Pipit in the pool just before the hill, a Redwing on the path and good numbers of Meadow Pipits. Lots of Parasol mushrooms! Whilst I skulked around the bottom brambles,Eddie walked over the top of the hill and saw a Phylosc dive into the bushes, but it was past dusk at this point, so could have been anything!
With south east winds and heavy rain over night and all day tomorrow, will we get a massive fall or even a MEGA?! We might just get drenched!
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