I dont often post anything about gear purchases but in the past 3 weeks ive spent a fair chunk of money on gear ready for my arctic trip and 2 of these items have impressed me.. Firstly tripods.. Gitzo GT3542LS Carbon An item i dont often use but an item that needs to be sturdy, well built and light.. I asked the question of my photography friends and it was fairly obvious which one got the vote, Gitzo. An expensive piece of kit and one i shunned at first due to the expense. I wasted hours looking and reviewing other makes only to find myself back to where i started Gitzo.. One other criteria that is key to these purchases, is buy once and make sure its a purchase that will last as your gear changes. Gitzo is the only logical purchase.. Extremely well made, will take huge weight and extremely sturdy.. One fantastic addition and the new safety feature on the base plate stopping it from falling off even if its loose is just the best.. Secondly Bags.. Think Tank Streetwalker Harddrive As my gear has grown i have a set criteria for a bag. I never change lenses and never remove them unless i really have to, this is mainly due to the conditions that i photograph in, mostly dusty but has been snow, sleet etc etc.. so the key to a bag for me is to accommodate Pro sized bodies on both wide angle and large zoom.. Many suggestions came back from my photography friends, F-stop, Think Tank, LowePro and Crumpler. Previously ive owned Lowepro but they have one major design flaw in my opinion, you cant configure the dividers in the bag to any configuration you want, you are governed by the set configuration that they must believe that every photography will have a DSLR mounted on a lens and that will sit in the middle of the bag, therefore space is not utilised well.. In addition the Vertex range do not fit within the carry on tolerance as well as others, im sure if asked it can be forced into the cradle at checkin but for me i would rather have something designed to be within the ever changing Airline ruleset. As usual i did allot of research and found the Think Tank Streetwalker Harddrive.. Now this bag is likely to small to take a 500mm prime mounted which may be the next purchase but for what i paid for the bag, im not overly concerned.. All i can say is wow, ive just took delivery, this bag is fantastic, it will easily take all my gear and more and will take the cameras mounted on lenses and more importantly, i can configure the internals anyway i want.. Another big plus has the been the customer support from Think Tank.. They are the best company i have dealt with and they go the extra mile when dealing with any question. One big thing Think Tank do is think about the customer, very well thought out products.. This may never be a bag best suited to long days hiking, F-Stop would likely be the best for that but this bag will easily take days on the back, its hugely comfortable.. In this day and age, its very few and far between that i go out of my way to say how good something is but these two products are just class items and dealing with the companies has been a pleasure.. Thanks to those that i asked questions and were gracious in their responses, even when i likely asked the same question twice. Richard Peters, Elliott Neep, Jules Cox, Jeff Harrison and Grant Auton. Thanks gents..
Posted on: Tue, 25 Jun 2013 11:39:33 +0000
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