PixelatedImage Blog

Lumen Dei team member James Wilson at the Shanti Stupa in Leh, Ladakh.

I gave two new toys a run while in Ladakh. The Pogo Printer, and the R-Straps. I was very excited about both of them, and both got a run for the money. Let me say up front that while I am sponsored by both companies,  this doesn’t prevent me from being honest about the gear. I choose my sponsors, not the other way around. I’m no fan boy. I want my gear to work, and if I’m less than honest my recommendation won’t be worth anything to either you or my sponsors.

The Pogo printer, marketed by Polaroid, developed by ZINK, is a wonderful little tool that held a great deal of promise going into this trip. It’s small, practically self-contained, and can produce a business-card sized print in 60 seconds. Within limits – the need to print a jpg, not a RAW file – and the troublesome battery, which I’ll mention in a moment, the Pogo worked brilliantly. To be able to give away photographs of people I had only moments ago captured is an incredible boon for the kind of work I do. To do it right there in front of them provides a relational exchange and the process of printing is as magical as the print itself.

The battery did not serve us as well. To be fair, we were at altitude and it was cold, and my contacts tell me I might just have a bad batch. Fair enough. But I had three freshly charged batteries in my pocket and there were times I had to go through all three to find one that had retained enough charge that I would be able to make a print. Frustrating. But they’re working on it, because it’s the weak link in an otherwise incredible product. Is it bad enough that I wouldn’t recommend the product? No way. These battery issues are a growing pain, and I’m dying to get better batteries, or an external AA pack, but there is nothing else like this on the market and the joy I see on people’s faces as I give them prints is worth the time to switch out dead-beat batteries. I’m trusting my sponsors when they say this is unusual and if the new batteries I get work better, you’ll be the first to know.

I’ve been raving on the R-Straps for a while now, but this is the first long trip I’ve done with all-day camera-carrying and shooting. The history, for those that don’t know: I’ve been shooting with my camera suspended from the bottom right corner for years, always jury-rigging my straps to accomodate. Then along came Blackrapid R-Straps. I don’t use the fastnR device right now, just clip the thing to a piece of climbers cord run through the bottom right lash point on the battery grips of my 5D. When I did try them they were too big to let me comfortably shoot vertically, but that’s being changed too – expect to see a way nicer FastnR soonishly (how soon, only the folks behind the curtain at Blackrapid can tell you).

The R-Strap is just great. I can clip in and out quickly, even with the quirky plastic retainer sleeve (which is being changed, btw). It allows me to bring my camera to my face quickly, and it’s comfortable. Maybe too comfortable. I don’t like the bulk of the padding. But that’s just me – I used to shoot with an Upstrap bandolier and that has no padding at all. Zero. Zilch. Nada. So I’m used to it, and like the lack of bulk. I’ve spoken to the Blackrapid folks about my hopes for a solution to this – a paired-down strap that is slimmer, lighter, and fits more easily into a camera holster. I can only tell you they’re on the case. But if they never changed that, I’d still like it. A lot. I believe 7 of the 9 of us on the Lumen Dei team used R-Straps, and all of us liked them. 2 of us who were using the RS-2 , which is bulkier still, ended cutting the pocket/zipper part off – which gave them a thicker padded RS-1, but without the bulky pockety thing. Do I love the R-Strap? I do. I still want them to make a slimmed-down version and judging by your previous comments, you’d go for it too.

One of my 5D bodies died only moments after finding out about the 5D MkII, and while my friend Kevin Clark graciously couriered a spare body out to me via my wife, Sharon, it looks like I’ll be getting a 5D Mk II sooner than I expected. I try not to get too excited about new gear, I chant “gear is good, vision is better” over and over, but sometimes the gear lust wins and I find myself thinking, “screw vision, give me something shiny.” I’m not proud of it.  But now you know, I’m human too.