[Leica] New bag

[mark at rabinergroup.com (Mark Rabiner)]

My Domke 803 was not a digital bag. I should have checked the label first.
It held cameras with prints like I like but the prints were 8x10s. I've had
it 4 or 5 years.
I'll be getting back to darkroom printing sooner or later but for the past 2
or 3 years I've been caught up or Mark Focused up on Inkjetting. The Carbon
thing is exciting on the Inkjetting Quadtone front.
My prints are 8.5x11 inch.
That's a letter print.
Which is an oxymoron as far as I go or at least an opposite because any
picture I've ever seen is the opposite of of what you usually put on typing
paper or stationary.
Words.
Pictures are the opposite of words.
Words; pictures; different things.
But why quibble?
Those prints do not fit in my trusty Navy Domke canvas 803.

And 802 which I got fits 11x14s loosely.
Leica M stuff gets lost in it. It's huge.
And they make other ones but none for my letter print babies.
Printed on Hahnem?hle photo rag 316gsm. (or 196gsm for in a PRAT PARIS
Slimline book) or Epson velvet (made by Somerset I think).

So I found a new bag which fits my letter prints, finally. And my Leicas or
even chunkier cameras at the same time.
It's a Crumpler. 
A company which makes bags which are a bit much.
Many of them are way too colorful messenger type bags which they make for
cameras. Seemingly for guys in their 20's. Not my favorite mentality, dude.
And all kinds of bags of odd shapes and odder colors but the best padding
I've ever seen or felt and very good design and they are improving fast.
I've dabbled in them. Got less then a dozen.
So this is my 803 but for that oh so slightly bigger print, a letter sized
print. And a separate compartment also inside the bag for gear.
It had a rather whimsical name.
The "BREAKFAST BUFFET".

Crumpler as weird as their colors and shapes are have much funnier names.
A short glance at their website handmade by "The Sputnik Agency" will tell
you that Billingham and Fogg do not have competition. But should worry
anyway maybe. The very funny music is playing as I type this from the
website.
http://www.crumplerbags.com/home.php

You've got to DRAG THE BUNNY to the right......
Not just click on it! DUMMY!
    Honey Bunny: [about to rob a diner] I love you, Pumpkin.
    Pumpkin: I love you too, Honey Bunny.
Then move the slider thing to the right and it's a duck shoot.
I'll give you a hint. Its blue.

Mine is in black and white.
http://www.crumplerbags.com/Cart/Resources/CartResources/189_res/b189_o3.jpg

So the philosophy of most of their other bags that
"you'd have to be nuts to put expensive gear in a bag this brightly colored
and attention getting but slightly funnily shaped"
    is put to rest.
This bag is close to low key. Although Leicas are small some people feel a
bag should fit a basic documents and magazines. Which is 8.5x11 or even
9x12. 
This bag takes that cake.
Out in the rain.
It will hold 12 inch computers but it does not look like a computer bag.
Which on the street are like silver metal Halliburton bags.
As you leave your hotel the muggers start to cue up in a maze.
By the way you do find it in the computer section. It is a computer bag!
It's not a camera bag. But I bought it in a "PRO PHOTO" cameras store so
what am I going to do? Just now as a matter of fact. Or before they closed
at 5. It was right in with all the camera bags.
You can even buy it I see on the Apple computer store site.
For 99 bucks!!!!
Mine was marked 85 and "PRO PHOTO" down the street though not an expensive
place is certainly not a discount place either.
Looks like Adorama which is selling it for 95!!!!!
http://www.adorama.com/CLBRBKG.html
Go figure. The Adorama people and the Austrians have not yet singed a piece
pact. Reminds me of the film I've seen twice which is great:
DIRTY DEEDS
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0280605/
Bryan Brown
Toni Collette
John Goodman
Sam Neill
It starts out great and just gets better.
Like a Breakfast Buffet!
Which reminds me of the San Francisco LHSA meeting
THIS MONTH!

Happy no more September everybody! I HATE THAT MONTH!

October is that OCT month which is not 8 but 10. Go figure. But I finally
figured out why. You are supposed to ignore January and February. They are
afterthoughts. 
Trouble is I was born in January and I'm very fond of that month.

Well I've been enabled on the photography side. My new bag is a portfolio
waiting to happen. A vestal waiting to be filled.
A coffee cup half filled waiting to be refilled at Denny's.
"Function follows form" that's what I've always said.
Others have mileage which has varied.
Cameras are real happy when they are close to the prints they make. Read it
and weep!
To equalize the universe; I'm putting not letter sized but 8x10 inch paper
in my typewriter! That may even be possible!


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Mark Rabiner
Photography
Portland Oregon
http://rabinergroup.com/