Tag Archives: Travel

Billingham Hadley Digital camera bag, first thoughts.

by in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

HI,

I took delivery of my new camera bag. The bag, is, as I knew it would be, superbly well made. It’s in excellent condition without a mark on it, a great second hand buy. One of the two internal dividers was missing but that doesn’t bother me for the price paid and they do spares if I choose to get more. A brilliant added bonus was the inclusion of the matching SP40 padded non-slip leather shoulder pad which, if bought as an accessory, is quite expensive. The big appeal of this bag, apart from the excellent quality of materials and manufacturing, is the extremely well padded plush interior with padded top, the good-sized front pocket which holds quite a bit and its weather proofing and it should be perfect for my day-to-day requirements, also no more zips, velcro and fiddling around fitting and removing rain covers!. I chose to try it for size with my Olympus PEN-F camera fitted with my M.Zuiko 12-45mm zoom with lens hood attached and it fits very well as the bag has some height to it which is another reason why I wanted it. Below a few shots of the bag and contents, if I was packing for a lengthier trip I’d probably squeeze in a small USB power bank and an extra spare camera battery into the front pocket and additionally pack one of my small, fast standard prime lenses in the main compartment if I get another padded divider.

PEN-F camera with 12-45mm lens attached, small four filter pouch, neoprene pouch containing lens brush, lens wipes and microfiber cloth, filter wrench as I’ve started to use filters more frequently of late, Tile Mate bluetooth tracker, spare camera battery plus two extra SDHC cards in a waterproof battery case, small cheap MP3 player and bluetooth ear buds as I occasionally like to listen to some music on my travels.

Kind regards

Leigh

I bought a Billingham Hadley Digital camera bag.

by in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Hi,

Back in the late 70s I bought one of the first Billingham 550 model camera bags ever made eagerly waiting weeks for it to be made and delivered as they were on lengthy back order such was their demand. It was a great bag, pretty large, quite heavy, but aged about twenty I was able to carry a lot more weight than I can now, it was really beautifully made and, at that time, it ticked all the boxes for me for a camera bag. It certainly wasn’t cheap even then given what I earned in those days but it was such a quality camera bag, it just screamed quality the second that one laid one’s eyes on it. I’ve been looking for a small camera bag specifically for a trip that I’m planning for later this year and I re-discovered their bags and I found one of these second hand at a very tempting price so I’ve ordered it. For my minimalistic requirements carrying just a small micro four thirds camera, one or two small lenses and a few essential accessories, spare batteries etc., I think that this bag will fit the bill very nicely. It’s pretty nigh impossible to find a bad review of Billingham camera bags, they’ve been making bags for fifty years and my experiences back then would bare this out completely. A quality UK product made from top quality materials, multi-layered waterproof canvas without the need for a separate rain cover, protective well padded interior and dividers with leather and brass fittings, arguably the best made and longest lasting camera bags that money can buy and the perfect stylish but still discrete companion to compliment my passion for retro-styled cameras and lenses 🙂 with the added bonus that to anyone not in the know it doesn’t look very much like your typical camera bag.

External Dimensions: W210mm (8¼”) x D130mm (5⅛”) x H210mm (8¼”) Internal Dimensions: W180mm (7⅛”) x D100mm (4″) x H170mm (6¾”) Capacity: 2.50 litres (0.09 feet³) Weight: 0.47 kgs (1.04 lbs)

Kind regards

Leigh

My stealthy sub £20 camera bag.

by in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I was walking past one of those cheap shops in Bognor Regis when I spotted this small rucksack for £9.99 UK and I thought it would make a nice small lightweight bag. After I got it home my thoughts turned to wondering if I could adapt it to serve as an inconspicuous camera bag. I dug out a padded camera insert with a velcro fastening flap lid that I’ve had for years and it fits very nicely with some room to spare for a rolled up waterproof jacket or suchlike resting on top and my neoprene “tripod in a pencil case” fits in the mesh side drinks holder pocket. I bought a hi-vis £4.99 waterproof rucksack cover to fit it. So as I’m guessing that I probably spent about £5.00 on the insert so the total expenditure comes out at approximately £20.00. It’ll hold a camera and lens and one or two additional lenses and I can put a few bits and bobs such as my camera rain cover, filter pouch and spare battery/s in the front pocket. 🙂 Most of all it just looks like what it is, a cheap rucksack. I’ve always liked adapting non camera bags to suit my purpose.

All the best,

Leigh

Pixis at the end of my garden! :)

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Great title huh! 🙂 , I was going to take a picture outside but the light’s pretty poor at this time of day so you get this one instead.

Hi everyone,

For some years now I’ve occasionally used my Manfrotto Pixi table top tripod. This little tripod has come in handy a few times. It’s small, light and pretty sturdy and best-suited for one of my smaller cameras and lenses but it has its limitations. The height cannot be adjusted and the ball head does not permit portrait orientation shots to be taken. I decided to get one of their Pixi Evo 2 tripods to address these issues. It is a bit bigger and heavier but still just small enough to slip into one of my camera bag compartments. Unlike it’s smaller sibling, the ball head is loosened and tightened by a three-sided knob rather than a hold in button. The head can be adjusted to facilitate portrait orientation shots and the legs can be adjusted individually to heighten the tripod with click stop positions, nice for uneven surfaces. There’s also a wheel with which to tighten the tripod thread unlike the Pixi which requires the whole tripod to be turned. Lastly there’s a small lever on the side which allows the legs to be adjusted to lay flat albeit significantly reducing the tripod height and having a much wider footprint. In that position, as one might expect, the tripod is extremely stable. The weight handling is claimed to be 2.5Kg which is comfortably more than enough for my cameras and all but my heaviest lenses. The tripod is heavy enough not to blow away with the slightest puff of wind. How it might hold up to the Winter winds straight from the sea on the Bognor Regis seafront is yet to be established 🙂 and it might also make a nice compact chest pod.

So all-in-all a worthwhile and, as these things go, relatively inexpensive upgrade which, who knows, just might encourage me a bit more to take a tripod with me on my travels. 🙂 I’d have liked to see a quick release mechanism incorporated similar to the Gorillapods but I can add one of mine but it would add extra weight and bulk, my bête noire, so for the times I foresee myself using it, I probably won’t bother at least to start with. I’m not a Vlogger but if I was and I was using the tripod as a hand grip/ selfie stick I’d probably still go with my smaller Pixi tripod as the Evo 2 is somewhat larger and heavier in one’s hand and thus grip-wise it doesn’t feel so secure unless one has somewhat larger hands than mine but because of it’s adjustable legs it does have more reach which, I guess, might be desirable.

Best wishes,

Leigh

Liberating and a lot of fun.

by in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I’m currently going through my shots taken in Marbella. The main purpose of the trip was a close family wedding at a beautiful venue but I also managed to get a while wandering around the old town in Marbella which is very interesting and beautiful as best as my legs would allow me. I wanted to take just a camera and one prime lens so after some deliberation I decided on a little bit of a calculated gamble and just took my Olympus E-M1 mk1 and M.Zuiko 25mm f/1.8 “nifty fifty”. I wanted a camera lens combination that wouldn’t be too imposing and would be fast and versatile for both informal stand-off portraits and wider small group shots at the wedding and also a good walkabout focal length for street shots, this worked extremely well and was, especially weight-wise, absolutely liberating. I chose my E-M1 because it has the best ergonomics of all of my Olympus camera models, totally subjective but it just feel right in one’s hand.

There were a few occasions when walking around the confined narrow streets of old town when I could have maybe done with a slightly wider lens like my M.Zuiko 17mm f/1.8 or Lumix 20mm f/1.7 but not so often as to be of a concern and this lens proved a very good lightweight all round choice especially outside in low light during the evening wedding reception which went on into the night. This was the reason in particular why I decided not to take the 20mm, optically great lens as it is, it does somewhat hunt in low light and can be slow to focus on occasions when compared to the blazingly-fast Olympus lenses.. I left my new 1/4 strength K&F Concept black mist diffusion filter fitted and this gave me some very nice dreamy lighting effects as well as a degree of pleasing flattering softening for people shots.

Funny how, after the best part of fifty or so years things have more or less come full circle. I started out with a lightweight Olympus OM series film camera with only a 50mm f/1.8 lens and despite using other gear along the way I’m now steadily rediscovering the joys of using a small Olympus camera with only a 50mm f/1.8 equivalent lens. 🙂

My USB charging gear worked as well as it always does, for once, we had a beautiful, spacious, modern apartment with more mains sockets than one could ever hope for! but I only need one to charge things up as required and I did have the further luxury of a table to put things on this time, it doesn’t get much better than that!. 🙂

More shots of Marbella to follow.

Kind regards

Leigh

We’ve forgotten about the art of photography

by in Leigh Kemp, photography, Travel and tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Hi everyone,

I watched an interesting You-Tube video by my friend Jimmy Cheng which reinforced points made in an earlier video by Peter Forsgard. The title of Jimmy’s video being “We’ve forgotten about the art of photography“. In the videos they both made what I think are very good points which have my full agreement. The points made regard the increasing number of sites that simply review camera gear, produce test shots, test charts and pixel-peeping etc. and don’t discuss photography itself either techniques and/or by way of real world shots.

I’ve always tried to make my blog a mixture of my work, my techniques and sometimes hands-on reviews of the gear that I use especially related to my love of photography, travel and travel/landscape photography in particular and not about all the technical mumbo-jumbo which, personally, I couldn’t care less about. I’ve NEVER been asked what camera and/or lens that I used for a particular shot as folks don’t generally care about such things and why should they?.

All the gear that I use has been paid for entirely out of my own pocket and I’m not trying to sell anything. I like to share my experiences especially so when I find a technique or bit of gear that I find useful and that I think will be of interest and useful to others. In an ideal world the balance of my posts would always favour sharing my work but it’s not an ideal world and, when I cannot get out, I like to take time to share my experiences and thoughts about the gear that I’m using in the hope that it might be of benefit to someone.

Kind regards

Leigh

These are a few of my favourite (travel) things :) UPDATED.

by in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Hi everyone,

Don’t worry I’m not about to break into a medley of songs from The Sound of Music but I could be tempted for a suitable remuneration in which case I can also supply the free loan of a pair of noise-cancelling headphones which make excellent ear defenders. 🙂 Here’s some of my favourite and most useful things that I pack in my travel gear, some general and some photography-specific.

Anker 5-port USB charging hub. Travelled with me extensively and the backbone of my USB charging. Compact, metal-cased and takes an interchangeable figure of eight mains lead and has a 100-240 input voltage so will work just about anywhere in the world with a suitable cable. They do newer versions but this one has served me very well over the years and I don’t have any immediate need to change it.

Another Anker product, my newly acquired Anker Nano USB power bank which I recently posted about. I’ve always travelled with a USB power bank of some sorts and this is very small and light, with a second output port. It attaches directly to the phone so no cable required and is more or less dedicated to topping up my phone battery on the move. It doesn’t have the capacity to fully charge the phone but it does top it up quite a bit until one can get to somewhere where one can charge it normally.

I found a nice dedicated fast charging solution for my Motorola G30 mobile phone the Motorola Turbopower 50W Duo USB-C + USB-A Charger, As my travels are mostly in Europe I wanted a charger with a 2 pin European plug connection, input voltage  100-240V AC, 50/60Hz. Not only is this charger less bulky and doesn’t require a UK to EU plug adapter it also has both USB-C fast charge and USB A sockets so can act as an additional or backup charger to my Anker charger should I require it. It has therefore replaced both my Motorola UK plug phone fast charger and my travel plug adapter/ 2 port USB backup charger. A significant weight and particularly space saving in my travelling tech bag. It has USB-PD Power Delivery and Quick Charge 3.0 technologies.

Another nice thing about this charger is that it could theoretically be used to simultaneously charge my Anker Nano USB power bank and the attached phone using the power bank’s passthrough charging feature and still have an extra USB-A port to charge another device. Not something that I’ve tried out as yet but I will be doing so as it could be really useful in the event of anything happening to my main Anker USB charging hub.

JJC USB dual camera battery charger, I have two of these to suit different types of camera batteries. It has a short 15cm hard-wired built in USB Type A cable which folds away neatly and stores on the back, it’s small, light and works well. It also comes with a short 40cm USB extension cable which could be useful.

My chosen memory card and battery case. This one holds two batteries and has compartments for 5 SDHC cards as well as several micro SD cards and 2 Compact Flash cards of which I have no need so I keep a couple of lens wipe sachets in these yellow-coloured hinged compartments instead. Both battery types (BLN-1 and BLS-5/50) as fit my various Olympus OM-D and PEN series cameras fit in comfortably. It’s not overly heavy, it’s water-resistant, well constructed and gives a good degree of protection to the contents which is just about all I can ask of it. A slight cautionary note, I’ve added some prominent “This way up” labelling to the outside of the hinged lid as if, in an absent-minded moment, one inadvertently opens it upside down then everything is going to fall out!, I speak from experience . 🙂 What would be nice is some form of latching bar mechanism over the batteries and cards which would prevent this from happening.

Subject of another recent post, my matchbox-sized Holux RCV-3000 USB/Bluetooth GPS data logger which is so useful for recording and subsequently geotagging the location of my shots.

Lastly another non electrical item which has come in handy on more than one occasion, my humble multitool. Everything from occasionally using the pliers or screwdriver to possibly, most importantly, opening a bottle of beer. 🙂

When one only has one mains socket and not even a table to charge things on. At least the mains socket didn’t alarmingly come away from the wall when unplugging which has happened to me a couple of times on my travels, a good reason to take a USB power bank 🙂 and I suppose that, looking on the bright side of life, at least I had a chair 🙂

Kind regards

Leigh

Update: I’ve now had a chance to try out passthrough charging the Anker Nano power bank (USB Type-C) and my phone and also simultaneously charging two camera batteries using my JJC USB dual camera battery charger (USB Type-A) from my Motorola 50w USB wall charger. All seem to work well, so these are going in my camera bag hand luggage. 🙂 These are the things that I most frequently need to charge and serving as a backup to the charging gear in the tech bag in my hold luggage should my case go missing.

Anker Nano USB Power Bank

by in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I’ve recently purchased one of these small USB power banks. I have several Anker power banks one of which usually lives in my camera bag whilst travelling which, over the years, has always served me well. I’m rarely off grid for long enough to concern myself too much with running out of power for my mobile devices, especially my camera as I usually carry a couple of extra charged batteries in my bag. The appeal to me of this particular power bank is a combination of its size: 7.7 x 3.68 x 2.5 cm, weight: 98.5 g and versatility rather than it’s charge capacity. I have bigger power banks should I need the extra battery capacity but these come at a premium regarding size and weight which runs contrary to my longstanding travelling as compact and light as is possible philosophy.

The unit has a fold out USB Type C connector and it plugs directly into my mobile phone and doesn’t add much weight so no cable required to connect the two together which is handy. it’s a firm fit but when attached I’d make a point of holding the phone and not the power bank to be on the safe side. It also has a Type C socket on the side, this socket is bi-directional and doubles as a charging port and second output port and the unit also comes with a Type C male to male cable to plug in and connect to another USB device eg. one of my USB dual camera chargers or maybe, with a USB Type C female to Micro USB Type B male adapter, my Bluetooth data logger, both of which also habitually travel with me in my camera bag.

I mentioned capacity, depending on one’s make and model of mobile phone it almost certainly isn’t going to charge a heavily discharged mobile phone battery to full power, that’s not what it’s designed to achieve, but it will serve in emergencies to top the phone battery up quite a bit until one can get to charge it normally. Likewise I can’t see myself using it very often to charge two devices simultaneously via its two Type C connections as that would drain it considerably faster. It came with about 25% charge or one of the four charging LEDs lit. I charged it with a standard, not fast, USB wall charger and it took approximately 1 hour and a quarter to charge to full capacity which is reasonably fast as I hate having to hang around whilst devices like this are charging. It also has passthrough charging to charge the power bank and attached device at the same time, not something that I will probably ever need to do with my typical usage as I have a mains-powered Anker 5-port USB charging hub that I always take on my travels but never the less another nice and potentially useful feature especially if one only has a single port USB charger. They also do a model with lightning connector suitable for I-Phones.

I’m always on the look out for ways to lighten and further compact my gear so a nifty little addition to my travelling kit as well as a nice little day-to-day unit to slip into one’s bag or pocket as and when one feels that it might be required.

Kind regards

Leigh

PS. I forgot to mention that, unlike my older power banks, when it’s connected to my Motorola Moto G30 phone it charges in fast charge “Turbo” mode same as the supplied mains wall charger which is a real boon when one need to get a good charge in quickly. As an example it charged my phone from 22% to 66% on fast charge before becoming depleted, this might improve slightly after several charge/discharge cycles. As they say “your mileage may vary”.

Follow up post to my Geotagging post.

by in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment, Travel and tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Hi everyone,

I thought I’d post a couple of example screenshots showing a track file that I recorded on my GPS Data logger when I visited Brugge some years ago. The first is from Geosetter and the second, of the same track as displayed in GPS Track Editor.

On the left one can see the list of folders containing one’s shots, select the appropriate folder and then the images can be Geotagged to the location information contained in the selected track file and displayed on the map.

On the right of the shot one can see the individual track points and one can edit these if one wishes. It also gives an indication by colour on the map of the speed of travel as well as direction of travel arrows. One can select multiple track files and overlay them on the map so if one has recorded several days of travel around an area they can be viewed at the same time.

Apart from Geotagging my shots I have a love of maps, I studied Geographic Information Systems which included Satellite Remote Sensing at University so I really enjoy viewing my travels especially on a street map at ground level in Google Earth. 🙂 To give an example, when strolling around one takes a picture of a building eg. a beautiful church and one doesn’t know it’s name but can subsequently easily locate it on the map and use it when naming one’s shot which has been useful to me on numerous occasions.

Kind regards

Leigh

Horses for my courses.

by in Leigh Kemp, photography, Photography equipment and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Hi everyone,

I am constantly revising and giving a lot of thought to my gear choices, partly based on experience and, unfortunately, ever-increasingly as dictated by my physical health. Below are three of my current favourite Olympus camera and lens combinations and my personal rationale for each.

Firstly, for travel, of the three, the middle weight combination my Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mk II camera and M.Zuiko 14-150mm II “super zoom” lens. Both are weather sealed with an excellent all-round focal length range without weighing me down too much. I’ve taken this camera and lens on lengthier travels and, like my other Olympus gear, they’ve performed faultlessly.

Next the lightest of my chosen camera and lens combinations, great for shorter stays and days out where I want to travel as light as possible whilst retaining as much versatility and image quality as possible, my Olympus PEN E-PL8, electronic viewfinder and M.Zuiko 12-45mm PRO f/4 constant aperture lens. Weather-sealed lens but not camera body but you probably won’t be surprised to hear that I have a suitable rain cover. 🙂 This lens also has the useful added advantage of a very close focussing distance.

Lastly the heaviest of the three camera and lens combos my Olympus PEN-F camera and M.Zuiko 12-40mm PRO f/2.8 constant aperture lens, a lens which has achieved pretty much legendary status amongst Olympus Micro Four Thirds users. I’m a huge fan of this retro looking stylish camera with its 20MP sensor and the lens is the bigger and faster sibling to the 12-45mm lens and shares its build quality, weather sealing as well as having a manual-focus clutch mechanism and lens function button. Again, the body isn’t weather-sealed but I can use a rain cover if needs must. It was amongst the first MFT lenses that I bought and I used to use this lens a lot more on my travels but, although it remains a great lens, it is the heaviest of the three. Nowadays this combination is mostly reserved for “special occasions” and/or for when I feel I’m up to carrying the extra weight for any length of time.

Kind regards

Leigh