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Review: Caden Camera Sling

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In a previous review of the Deeko-2012A Rucksack I’d mentioned that the folks over at UKPhotoDistro Ltd  had sent me a “gift” to make up for the delay in my shipment of the rucksack.  Well, what they’d sent was exactly what I was looking for and have loved it since it arrived…

Caden NEOPRENE Shockproof Camera Strap / Sling.  Which they sell on their ebay store for a a bargain price of £17.99 plus shipping!

caden

While over in the US I’d looked at a number of slings and loved how they felt and how the camera hung at my side, but I really battled with the price tags .. I know, you get what you pay for, blah, blah, blah, but it was also more of a “It’s really nice but can I really justify it?”  Well, to anyone considering such a purchase, I’d have to say yes, it is a bit of equipment that everyone should be able to justify.  I’ll never go back to a neck strap again after this thing.

So, the good folks over at UKPhotoDistro Ltd sent me one of these.  Since receiving it, it’s been attached to my camera pretty much all the time.  I love how the camera hangs to the side and mostly behind me, so when walking through crowds there’s no more bashing the camera body and lens against people or worse, I had the camera on a neck strap with my 70-300mm lens when the person in front of me stopped on a dime … with zero chance to react, they ended up with pointy end of my lens in their back while my gut took the full front of the camera body.    Since that time I hated neck straps and decided I had to find another alternative.  Even my neoprene neck strap doesn’t give the feel of comfort that this sling does.

The only “issue” I’ve had with this is one that I think I can fix easily enough after speaking with John over at UKPhotoDistro Ltd. Basically, the mounting plate for the bottom of the camera will not tighten up enough and after a short period of time the plate will pivot around which totally throws off the hang of the camera and it doesn’t feel right.  The problem seems to be that the screw that goes into the tripod mount is too long on the plate, so it hits the bottom of the hole before it’s fully tightened up.  The suggested fix is to cut a sheet of rubber / Neoprene and stick it between the plate and the camera body.  I’ll find some and give it ago.

Anyhow, thanks very much guys, it was a perfect gift and already has been well used (but not yet abused :)) … I’ll certainly be buying more goods from these guys.  Check them out.

 

I’ve added some photos of my sling with my Nikon D7000 attached below the “read more” link .. check them out.

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Review: Deeko-2012A Rucksack

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Back in March I was looking for a new backpack to replace my aging laptop backpack from L.L. Bean. That bag has been fantastic over the last 10 years and been everywhere with me, however it was getting time to move on to something newer that would could handle the larger laptops of today. So, I went looking for a bag that would handle larger laptops, perhaps up to 17” and ideally if it had enough padding in a pocket that I could put my camera in (Nikon D7000).

My search lead me to UKPhotoDistro Ltd and I found the Deeko-2012A Camera and Laptop Rucksack. The specs of the bag, from the site are:

  • Size: 32cm x 20cm x 43cm
  • Solid handle
  • Side netting to place water bottle
    (Mine has a zip up mesh pocket for the water bottle)
  • Thick sponge protection for laptop
  • Many internal pockets to store small items
  • Tripod attachable at the bottom or side
    (Mine allows for side mounting in its own pull out pocket)
  • Sturdy handle + metal parts
  • Strong and solid fastener

However, they’ve not mentioned one very nice feature of this rucksack, it also has a built in rain cover that you can pull out of the bottom and cover your rucksack to protect your precious cargo!!

The bag that is currently on sale has mostly the same specs as mine, however, the design of it has changed. From the photos I’d say I think I prefer my version of the bag, but it’s really hard to tell just from looking at the photos.

From the site I’ve pinched a couple of photos with the specs:

Deeko Bag - UKphotodistro Limited - Mozilla Firefox_2012-05-29_09-49-15

Deeko Bag - UKphotodistro Limited - Mozilla Firefox_2012-05-29_09-50-23

Ok, so that’s what is on sale now.

 

So, what are my thoughts on the bag? Well, I’d suggest to anyone looking for a sturdy laptop AND camera bag, get one of these!  It’s as simple as that. The rucksack is very comfortable to carry, easy to get on and take off, and everything is very accessible. There are plenty of zippers to keep things secure. The laptop pocket even allows for a padlock to be attached to secure that pocket. While the bag rides very nicely on the back, especially when using the waist strap, the only complaint I have is I find that my back got hot and sweaty from the padding, so a simple fibreglass frame to create a space between the bag and the padding to allow air to flow would be a nice enhancement. All in all though the bag is very well balanced no matter how you load it up.

On one day I took a walk around Cambridge and was actually out walking around for nearly 5 hours. I loaded up the bag with what I’d need for the day and it weighed in at 19.8lbs or 9KG. So, what did I have in the bag you might wonder? Well the purpose of the trip wasn’t just to walk around but to take some photos in Cambridge but also to be in town for a RAYNET event that was taking place that evening, so I had a bit of extra stuff for that. So the list of gear in the bag looks like this:

Heavy Tripod with 3 way head Nikon D7000 w/ 18-105mm lens
Nikon 35mm f/1.8 lens Nikon 50mm f/1.8 lens
Tamron 70-300mm lens Yongnuo 467 Speedlight
iPad 2 Yaesu VX-5r HT
750ml Bottle of water (on the side) 3 x 500ml water bottles inside
Samsung Galaxy S2 Pack of AA batteries for Speedlight
Remote flash triggers Remote control for the camera
5000mAh battery Pack to charge phone Various cables for phone and camera
USB wall charger A few normal documents I always carry in the bag

 

What didn’t I like about the bag? Well, not a lot really, no hard core hate points. The only things I didn’t like are really more a list of “things I’d do differently” than out and out complaints.  I suppose it’s best to give you a list in the usual Pro / Con format

Pros

  • Large and well padded shoulder straps with shock absorbers at the top!
  • Well padded laptop pocket to give protection on all sides, and easily holds my Dell E6520 15.6” laptop
  • Well padded where it sits on your back
  • Loads of room for everything!
  • Well constructed and sturdy, the large solid carry handle on top is a major plus
  • Built in rain cover to protect the gear
  • Light weight bag (when empty)

Cons

  • No real air flow for your back, this could be fixed with a light weight frame or different padding arrangement I think
  • The small zipped pockets on the waist straps would be better if the zips were turned around, right now they unzip from the bottom of the pocket up and over the top of the pocket, this means you could well lose change or other small items if you unzip in a hurry
  • There is no single huge pocket in the bag, ie, if you want to use to go to the shops for a few groceries, making it more of a general rucksack. This could very easily be fixed by adding a zipper to 3 sides to the main pocket’s floor, unzipping that floor would open the bag up to allow for a nice huge pocket once you remove the camera bag.
  • It could do with a couple more little pockets inside for small items
  • Add locking holes to the camera pocket just like the laptop pocket as camera gear can easily be worth more then a laptop.

All of the cons above are simple fixes and, really, in no way detract from the value of this bag. If the manufacturer fixed those I would have NO complaints at all about this bag, it really is a cracker.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention this bit as well, but the customer service by the folks over at UKPhotoDistro Ltd is absolutely top quality!!!  I’d contacted them to find out when I might expect my bag as it was getting very close to the 21 day point … I was informed that there was a delay with the shipment that was out of their control however they were very sorry and hoped they could make things up to me some how,  and offered to throw in a photo related gift to show their appreciation of my patience and understanding… they were true to their word and did just that … You can check out that review by CLICKING HERE. I was more then pleased with what they’d sent me, that item has now become as much a part of my daily camera carry as my camera is!

I’ve included links to photos of the bag I bought below, click on the read more to see those photos. You can also see the photos over at Flickr by CLICKING HERE, I’ve included some description on the photos over on Flickr.

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Review: Wind Up Charger w/ Torch

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I was asked by the good folks over at MobileFun.co.uk to review their Wind Up Mobile Phone Charger w/ Torch. This was in response to a recent blog posting where I mentioned I want to do some Wild Camping, you can read Things I want to do

Click on the photos to see the full size original photos

What they shipped me was in the box to the right, I’ve used a pen for size reference.  I was quite impressed with the size of the box to say the least. 09042010342
09042010344 Inside the box were two bags, one with the charger/torch in it and the other has all the various bits to fit a multitude of mobile phones.
There is an extension cable that allows you to plug the adapters for the phones into the charger, which is nice, it suggests that perhaps in the future they could simply offer new tips to fit other devices (and not only mobile phones?)  The back page of the manual identifies the tips and the phones they fit. 09042010345
09042010346 You can see how truly small the charger device is in this photo.  I don’t have the biggest hands around it’s fair to say, but I can nearly conceal it in my hand.

Continue reading for my review

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