As many of you know, I’m a big fan of Crumpler bags. I have one for practically every situation I could need one for. I recently had the chance to ‘trade up’ my 7 Million Dollar Home for a Brazillion Dollar Home (they have the funnest names for their bags):
Basically, someone bought a bag bigger than they needed and I wanted an upgrade so thanks to Craigslist, a deal was made. Both of us had barely used the bags – I only bought mine a couple of months ago and only used it once. I wanted the Brazillion because it’s a great bag to store ALL of your gear at home and for dragging everything to a studio shoot…basically you wouldn’t want to use this for a photowalk (you don’t really need everything when you’re walking around anyways) but it’s great for car trips if you want to take it all with you.
The main difference between the two bags is size…the Brazillion is HUGE. It has a large internal cavity that can be configured using the big pile of inserts any way you need for your gear:
It also has an internal pocket that can hold up to a 17″ laptop. The lid of the bag can actually be used as a laptop stand – it’s quite rigid and has a strap you can put around the laptop to keep it snug. It also has external zippered pockets to hold all kinds of gear like cables, flash units, memory cards, etc.
The one thing it didn’t come with is a manual! Seriously there are a million ways to configure this bag and at least a few example setup photos would be helpful. I’ve been trolling around online looking to see how other people have set up theirs.
Here’s the Brazillion next to my 5 Million Dollar Home bag which I usually use for small photowalks when I only need a couple of lenses and my DSLR:
To give you a better idea of what this bag is capable of, check out this video (the first half anyways) from PMA a few years ago where Ben Richards from Crumpler demonstrates some of it’s features….and check out that snappy tux Ben’s wearing…classy, just like the bags:
I’ll post a photo or two once I’ve got it setup the way I like…which could take awhile.
UPDATE: Here’s the bag fully loaded after my first attempt at configuring it and all the gear that fit inside (click the bottom photo to see the gear notes on Flickr). There is still tons of room inside as well…so it’s not truly ‘fully’ loaded:
I took the plunge this past week and bought a 15″ MacBook Pro. This was mostly due to the increasing amount of video and photography I’ve been doing lately and needed a bit more (okay a lot more) horsepower under the hood.
One thing that I’ve always wondered about, is that card slot in the larger MacBook Pro’s. I’ve always chosen the smaller form factor size for my laptops (iBook, 12″ PowerBook and most recently the MacBook Air) – none of which had an Expresscard slot (or it’s predecessors, the PC Card or PCMCIA slot).
Given the purpose of my laptop upgrade, it seemed fitting that I found you could get media card readers for use in this slot. This saves the hassle of bringing a card reader with you all the time – they are small and very losable. I have the added benefit of being completely on SD cards for all my cameras. Other formats like compact flash are wider than the opening for the Expresscard so those readers a bit bulky and don’t sit flush in the slot.
I found the Sandisk Expresscard reader (which I found in Canada cheaper from one of my favorite online photography gear sources, Henry’s) to be the cheapest/most available. I prefer to trust my media reading with name brand gear so went with Sandisk over some generic brand readers I found online and locally.
The Expresscard reader just slides into the slot and clicks into place. You click it again to pop it out. It sits flush inside the laptop. When you insert an SD card, it will jut out a little so you’ll have to be careful with it if you have the laptop on your lap. At least you can easily see it in the slot as a reminder to download your photos and eject the card.
Considering most decent card readers cost around the same price, this solution seems pretty solid to me and means I have one less thing to carry.
In case you’re wondering, yes, my MacBook Pro is green…well it’s wearing a green skin at least.
As in I’ve had it for 12 hours….not a 12 hour long review….although there are a lot of pictures.
Obviously I haven’t had it long enough to really put it through it’s paces but here’s a bunch of photos and a few thoughts.
As with all Apple products, the packaging alone is a fantastic customer experience. The MBA comes in a box that reminds you of a board game….I’m not talking something from Parker Bros, but something more elegant. The box is sturdy dark cardboard. The lid has foam glued inside that at first glance looks like velvet. It’s always the little things that make it that much better.
Once you take the lid off, you’re greeted with the MBA in a black plastic tray with a little “Designed by Apple in California” tab that you use to lift the laptop out of the tray and access the other items hidden below. Despite this packaging and computer being Apple’s greenest device yet, the plastic tray has a recycling number 6 which at least around here, isn’t recyclable – maybe it is in California.
It’s deceiving at first how thin it is because you assume the plastic tray is deeper than it really is. You can see in the picture above, the MBA isn’t much thicker than the iPhone. Here’s the MBA snuggled up to the eeePC (both are flat on the table and flush with each other):
Of course since I had the MBA delivered to my office, there was a crowd of people anxious to see it. Some wondered why I didn’t just open it and why was I stopping to take pictures of the box. They now know why.
Once you pick it up, you immediately realize that it’s more solid than you’d expect and does have some weight to it. One big concern many have with the MBA is how fragile it might be because it’s so thin. It feels just as solid as my Powerbook G4 every did while at the same time being light as a feather. It feels well crafted, not unlike a high quality kitchen knife does.
Unlike other Apple laptops, there is not much to the underside of the MBA. There is no battery indicator light which is disappointing nor is there any way to lock up the laptop via lock port. I guess there was no secure place inside to make a lock point. The port door is also much more solid than I was expecting and definitely doesn’t feel like it would break off or stay open – it’s very solid.
The backlit keyboard is fantastic and just like the new keyboards that come with iMac’s and similar to what you find on a MacBook.
Once I got it home, the first thing I did was do a clean install of Leopard with the included install DVDs. The stock Leopard install on any new Mac actually has a lot of wasted stuff including 3.4gb of unneeded printer drivers, 1.8gb of language files. It also has 240mb of space wasted by iWeb. This gives me just about 63gb free with nothing else on it yet. Leopard and iLife take up a fair amount of space and removing those unnecessary files will help once I start using the MBA.
Since my MBA Superdrive hasn’t arrived yet (expecting it tomorrow), I had to use my ‘full size’ external DVD burner which worked no problem over USB.
Now that the install is complete and the Apple pr0n has been uploaded to Flickr, I’m going to go play with it.
Leave a comment if there is anything you want to know about it.
As I expected, my MacBook Air arrived today ahead of the projected shipping time and before my friend who ordered earlier than me and paid extra for faster shipping. I did have mine shipped to the office and he had it shipped to his house in Port Coquitlam so that may have been the difference.
(which I found in Canada cheaper from one of my favorite online photography gear sources, 
