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Roberts dealing in Boblbee, we got your back

Fine purveyors of quality active gear

So we like bags, here at Roberts. Yes we do. Bags, see, they let you carry more and diverse things than you might with just your hands or a few buckles and straps. Sometimes all you need is a couple of straps and 1/4-20″ screws but other times you’re going to get on a motorcycle, or a bicycle, or a pair of skis and you know what? You’ll want a Boblbee for it.

Boblbee’s Megalopolis Aero line will hold a laptop up to 14″x10″x2″. And to comment on why you’d want to put your laptop in a Boblbee, we’ll refer to the guy who came up with the concept:

For years, Jonas Blanking has left his car at home in favor of his bike or a pair of roller skates to get to work. Always equipped with a backpack to accommodate working notes, sketches, a laptop and some gym wear it bothered him, that on the way, soggy books and an occasionally fractured laptop casing were the result of forgetting what he carried.

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Raw Footage and the ThinkTank Retrospective 30

While I’m busy working on the new look for Roberts Raw, how about some Friday distractions in the form of absolutely silly videos about an absolutely not-silly product: the ThinkTank Photo Retrospective 30 messenger bags.

These bags are big and roomy and, well, why don’t you just watch?

And, if our take’s not enough, don’t forget Jared “The Fro” Polin over at Fro Knows Photo, whose take on theRetrospective 30 we’ve politely YouTube ninja’ed below for your viewing enjoyment.



New Product: ThinkTank Airport Takeoff

Oooooh, rolling luggage and a back-pack...

Oooooh, rolling luggage and a back-pack...

The appropriately named Airport Takeoff from ThinkTank, another entry from in their newest line-up, serves double duty as your rolling luggage and hanging on your back like the three-thirty coffee itch. It’s suited for holding two professional sized DSLRs (You know, D3, 1D/s I-III) with or without lenses attached and a decent slab of glass in the order of a 300mm 2.8.



Size matters? / Daddy’s got a brand-new bag.

I should preface by saying that I love our used department. Given that they’re also the lighting department. And bags. They handle a lot downstairs and I like to chat with them when I’m making my way back from our warehouse.

They are also some mad-hat haters. I for one am pretty thrilled that my e-410 can, with an adapter, mount a manual focus 50 1.8 from the OM system or Nikon or EOS and have an equivalent 100mm 1.8. Mr. Proctor quipped that he could achieve the same result by cropping his images by 50%. My retort was that my cropped sensor still has all its pixels…and he shot back with the higher pixel density = more noise argument. I weakened, fell back on “control your lighting” and was trampled under the powerful tag-team assault of from Rich’s “I like shooting at ISO 3200 and having it look like 1600″ and Scott’s “why don’t you just draw a picture” jab at my fumbling “I’ll fix it in post!”

My Shooting-Fu is yet weak in its reliance on fixing things like white balance, exposure recovery, and cropping in post, and I must yet tremble before the masters who complete mathy-like equations involving focal length, aperture, apples, oranges, and jalapenos while panning their manual focus lenses without even thinking about it. I am currently more concerned about composition and the more squishy notion of a photograph’s “feel” than being technically perfect right from the camera (because, you know, there’s no on-board firmware making decisions about color balance, contrast, etc).

So have fun with the below:

Where my new Crumpler bags were hellishly in need of some white balancing I went back and used the handy one-touch WB function and shot it again. Mostly to keep playing with the new gallery function Mr. Martin has implemented in the blog.

See you Thursday, folks.



Oh My Lowepro

So, I got this from our rep a couple days back, and we feel this is the best way to share it with you, dear readers.

“So…….below is a photo of how I use the Flipside 300 to hold my Canon 500 f4 lens…  plus the Wimberley Sidekick, which many shooters use with the 500 to control the lens nicer on the tripod.  To be able to put both in one small bag is a dream!!  You have no idea how excited about this I am!!  I have shown it to so many people.

“It all fits in the pack perfectly…and you should put a photo of the 500 in the Flipside (300) for one of your alternate views on the site.  This is huge!!  No one makes a good bag or small backpack for the 500…and it probably fits many other big lenses too from Canon and Nikon.  Don’t overlook this…  It is huge in my opinion.”

“The CompuTrekker is my favorite pack ever made…and I love it to death.  I have sold countless bags for you from showing it in all of my photography classes… I show them how much gear it can handle…and how well it contours to the back….and then let them know it fits a laptop with ease. This is key because I do so many photo presentations when I am leading photo tours…….and I need my laptop so often.  It really is the most versatile pack made in the world and no one in my opinion, has anything close.”

Our Lowepro rep sent us this from an “anonymous Canon tech rep.”  (Lowepro of course making those imperative digital camera accessories, the camera bags, and making them well. I used a Rezo 160AW for quite some time before giving it to my dad). We’ll accept some healthy skepticism towards the authenticity of the testimony, but we have to admit, the picture included is good, because apparently the 500mm monster of Canon lenses does actually fit in the Flipside 300 quite cozy. Really. See the picture below.



Spring Expo 2009: Crumpler

As Mr Henry across the room is enjoying his just-arrived today 6 Million Dollar Home (the Black / Gunmetal / Lime Green variant, for those of you sporting too much curiosity [and which we don't stock but will happily special order for you]), as well as a couple Headaitch totes, I figure now’s probably the right time to break out the shortest and… strangest… Expo interview we did. It’s… no, you know what? Just watch:



Keep on keepin’ on.

Alright boys and girls, step right up, bring yourselves, bring your cameras, bring hot shoe flashes and accessories, bring your friends who wear hot shoes and flashy accessories – we’re doing another Photowalk on Wednesday, April 22nd.

Thanks again to Chris and Tony who came out this week, despite the chill, despite the humidity, despite the overcast, way too evenly diffused lighting.

I ran into a snag, of sorts this week, one which I intend to Crumple next week. The snag? Adding Derek’s Lensbaby 3G to my bag for a few days. Now my handy little Olympus kit bag is bursting with kitted goodness and things are more crowded than a Tokyo subway. Despite my 410′s dinky body, one attached and two floating lenses is more bacon than the pan can handle.

My chosen solution is the Crumpler Six Million Dollar Home. I know you know that D-mart is a Crumpler devotee, and I’m getting convinced myself. They’re heavy duty, water-repellent bags with massive amounts of velcro, fat padding, and are run by guys who will measure the capacity of their bags with six packs. Now if only camera manufacturers would start using jiggers as a metric for bokeh…



Crumpler is Insane, Hilarity Ensues

Crumpler USA

Crumpler USA

Crumpler is nuts. As eye-raising as certain ThinkTank bag names can be (“Whip It Out”, “Streetwalker”), Crumpler doesn’t just stride past them, they apparently do cartwheels and back-handsprings past them while laughing reminiscently of Heath Ledger’s performance as the Joker.

Once a year they sell bags for pre-determined amounts of beer. They have color by number toilet paper. They sold me the best bottle opener I’ve ever owned. They have bags with names like “Dreadful Embarrassment”, “Salary Sacrifice”, “Thirsty Al”, and “Cork and Fork.”

And, apparently, they have product descriptions that throw up red flags in our site’s spam detection system.

Yes, yes, this is good . . . I like the view . . . And do you like my sharks in the pool? Yes, hmmm, they don’t seem to like that topless girl . . . Who is she, by the way, dahhhhhling?

With product descriptions like the one above (from the 2 Million Dollar Home) I can’t see why any flags would be thrown up at all. (End sarcasm)

Anyway, it was actually a delightful little mess, and I think we’ve got things tweaked so it won’t happen again. But, if you were trying to search our site for any of our Crumpler stock there for an hour and came up emtpy, well, we thought we owed you an explanation.