Canon EOS Rebel T3i now in stock

I’m a big fan of the Canon Rebel series as they are power cameras that are easy to use. I’m pleased to announce that they are now in stock at B&H so you can order yours today.

To learn more about this new body, check out this article.

To get my advice on purchasing a DSLR, check out this article. You can now substitute my recommendation for the T2i for the T3i in that article.

REVIEW: Think Tank Photo Retrospective 20

*** Special Offer at the end of this article! ***

Retrospective 20 Rear View – Copyright ® Ron Martinsen

When the Think Tank Photo (TTP) Retrospective bags first came out I asked TTP why didn’t they just call these Urban Disguise (UD) bags with colors? From the web site I couldn’t see much difference so it didn’t make a lot of sense to me at first. After reviewing these bags I understand the subtle differences and more importantly I’ve come to appreciate both the Urban Disguise Series as well as the Retrospective Series much more. I still wish they’d make a UD bag in the Retrospective material, but hey that’s just my 2 cents.

A Closer Look

Retrospective 20 Front View – Copyright ® Ron Martinsen

You can see my review of the Urban Disguise Series and the Urban Disguise 40 v2.0 for a closer look at them, but the one thing I noticed right away about this series is the material. It’s much more flexible and doesn’t seem anything like a camera bag on the outside. TTP bags are known for being stealth, so this takes it to the next level.

One complaint I had about the front flap shown above is that it doesn’t have an external pocket like you see on the Urban Disguise series bags like the UD 40 v2.0 shown below:

Copyright © Think Tank Photo

On the inside the Retrospective 20 is going to feel familiar to Urban Disguise bag owners. I can say that compared to my 40 that it felt taller as shown below where it swallows the 70-200mm pretty easily:

Inside View – Copyright ® Ron Martinsen

Since this bag doesn’t use the buckle system found in the UD series you end up with massive pieces of Velcro. This results in a loud noise when you lift the flap, so you can release the flaps shown below called Sound Silencers to cover the big Velcro strips to quiet the bag.

Sound Silencers can be used to prevent the Velcro tearing noise when needed
Copyright © Ron Martinsen

While I appreciate the thought, I actually don’t like this feature because I think you are taking a greater risk of spilling your gear. I do wish this bag had the UD series style buckles instead of big Velcro.

Video

Here's a video tour of the bag that I have. My apologies for the poor quality video and sound, but hopefully you’ll still get the idea. I must also point out that I incorrectly describe the sound silencers in the video due to my review of a separate back intended for HDSLR’s.

Please note that an HD version is available in the link below:

HD Available – Click Here

As you can see it can hold a lot of gear, but honestly I’d recommend something smaller than a pro body. It fits, but not comfortably. My 5D Mark II (or the Nikon D7000 I reviewed) is actually a better fit. In real life, usually use it to hold my 24-105mm on camera as shown along with a 580 EX II flash and an one other lens like a 16-35mm.

Conclusion

Before I got this bag I wasn’t very interested in reviewing it as I didn’t see any value in having it. I have Urban Disguise bags which I love and use often, so I just didn’t see any value in having a different color bag that seemed the same.In may ways I still think the Urban Disguise Series additional features make them the better choice, but when I had both bags available and sitting next to each other I kept find myself wanting to use this one.

Ultimately I learned that they aren’t the same and came to appreciate the nice look and flexibility of this bag. I also appreciated the fact that it looked less like a camera bag when I had to leave it in the back of the SUV when parked. Camera theft is going way up in my state, so stealth mode is super important these days. Of course, I don’t recommend you leave your bag in plain site and camera insurance is a must, but sometimes you’ve just gotta leave the bag in the car for a bit so I appreciated this feature. 

I recommend this bag for those who are looking for something more stylish or softer. I find myself using mine and enjoying it quite a bit when I need to take a camera bag to a friends house and I don’t want to look like the photography geek.

A note to Canon owners: The photos (not video) in this article were shot with Canon’s new 70-300mm f/4-5.6L IS USM lens that I reviewed here.

Special Offer

Visit my Think Tank Photo to learn about a special offer on how you can get a free bag when you place your order, plus links to other TTP reviews. You can also visit my discount coupon code page for other discounts and offers.

Disclosure

I was given a bag to review for this article and I may get a commission if you make a purchase using the links in this article. Please support this blog by using the links.

B&H–New MacBook Pro’s & Free HDSLR Videos

I’m kicking myself in the foot because it was just late last year when I picked up a new 17” Macbook Pro for myself and a 13” for my wife, and now these lovely beasts come out – arrgggh!!!!

While you can certainly get yours from the Apple store, the cool thing about buying from B&H is that they have a better return policy (ever tried returning an iPad like me – OUCH – $60+), they have free shipping and most importantly – no sales tax for most people. This can add up to several hundred dollars in savings, and with the pre-configured versions with the most common options it can be delivered quickly once they start shipping.

Click here to see a complete listing of new MacBook Pro’s offered by B&H.

B&H has updated their cool HDSLR web site with some great new videos by Shane Hurlburt, ASC coming soon. I’ve had the pleasure of talking to Shane and listen to him talk about his experiences shooting with the Canon 5D Mark II and I can tell you these videos are going to be awesome. He’s a great enthusiastic speaker with tons of knowledge, so if you are into video you won’t want to miss these FREE videos!

Disclosure

I may get a commission if you purchase using the links on this blog. It doesn’t cost you a penny and it helps me and my family a lot – thanks for your support by using my links!

Photo Thoughts–Giving Dull Images Some Punch

Copyright © Ron Martinsen – All Rights Reserved
Canon 5D Mark II – 1/125 sec at f/8, ISO 160
Elinchrom RX600 & Deep Octa

If you hover over the image above you’ll see the before image that I started with. I was quite happy with that image, but I’m thrilled with the final edited version. Here’s what I did:

1. I used Lightroom 3 to export the raw file to Photoshop CS4 using a decent starting point and some cropping.
2. I used Imagenomic Portraiture and I downloaded one of their free actions from here so I could use the PTBlackSkinAverage1 action to get a pleasing skin enhancement for this young mans skin.
3. Next, I used the healing brush to remove skin blemishes.
4. I used Viveza 2 to bleach out the background so I could get a quick and easy selection of just the background using the quick selection tool. I did the selection on the blue channel using a technique I learned in The Photoshop Channels Book (my favorite book on selection). I also used an overlay brush to paint around the edges of the hair (a technique described in the book) to quickly get the edges of the hair perfect in the mask. In this Viveza enhancement I also brightened up the gold chain.
5. The image was looking good at this point but I wanted it to be a “wow” image, so I used a trick I just learned in some training I’ll discuss here soon. I selected the red channel from the channels pallete, pasted it into a new layer and then set the blending mode to soft light. This trick was like magic and really gave this image the look I wanted. I used a layer mask to keep only the portions I wanted.
6. With a good selection of just the background I used Photoframe to add this really cool background. I used the refine edge masking feature to get my mask perfect so there weren’t any halos along the hair or torso.
7. I used Nik Software’s Tonal Contrast filter found in Color Efex to give the shirt a little more texture.
8. I used the liquefy tool to deal with some problems in the shirt on the left side and by the bicep to that the shirt looked a little cleaner along that edge.
9. I did a LAB Color enhancement at 25% opacity on the b channel per the instructions in Scott Kelby’s fantastic 7 Point System book.
10. I finished off with some sharpening (but only on the subject, not the background) using Sharpener Pro to give it a final touch.

Total time spent – about 4 hours, most of which was experimenting and doing the cloning and healing work.

Lot’s of cool tricks were used on this one, so my advice here is to read the books mentioned and get the add-ins I used if you like this look. All my tools were super helpful on this one!