Black Rapid Double Strap RS DR-1 Review

Click image above to goto Black Rapid's info page. Where do I begin with this sleek, sexy, trendy, almost necessary piece of equipment? Well, how about the beginning.

In the beginning, photographers had one camera. Until the late 1920's, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone toting around two or more view cameras; it just wasn't economical. Besides, back then, clients gave time a little more consideration, what with glass plates, tintypes, and large film to develop. Fast forward to the 1950's and 60's where rangefinder cameras and medium format ruled the day. It made sense to have more than one camera, each for different focal lengths, client needs, film speeds, etc. Not everybody had two bodies, but those that did found their job easier with the inclusion of another body. Unfortunately for photogs of that day, they had to deal with choking on leather and/or more uncomfortable straps.

Let's take another time skip to the digital age/today where showing up with two cameras at a wedding means you're probably related to the family, but not the hired photographer. Ok, enough cheap shots at "Uncle Bob", but seriously, two cameras is a must for most situations (except vacation, where you should be relaxing).  So besides juggling the manufacturer provided straps between two arms, a neck, or all of the above, what can a busy photographer do? The answer is sling it up with the R-Strap.

If you haven't heard of the R-Strap yet, don't worry, you're only about two years behind, and should probably watch this:

And now for a closer look at today's review, the RS DR-1:

Ok, so its cool looking, and Black Rapid has you convinced you can gun somebody down with your new strap, but what can it really offer you? For one thing, it completely eliminates strap burn. By placing the double strap over your shoulders and across your back and chest, weight is distributed more evenly and allows you to move more freely. With smaller gear, this isn't much of a big deal. But when you're photographing a baseball tournament with a 1D + 70-200 f/2.8 and a 50D + 300 f/2.8* on board, weight becomes an issue, FAST.

*The 300mm f/2.8 is strongly discouraged with R-Strap usage due to its excessive weight. I've tried it on multiple times with no troubles.

So we've covered running around and thinking that you look cool during a sports tournament, but what about an event that's a little more dressy, say a wedding? Well, the RS DR-1 comes in handy once again. By adjusting the length of the strap to just below a suit jacket opening, the R-Strap allows you to wear an open jacket over-top itself, and still shoot comfortably. I personally haven't tried it with a vest, but have heard through the grapevine that it’s a bit more of a hassle. Adjusting the position where the strap "catches" your camera is also a cinch, easily adapting to whatever equipment combinations you throw at it. The last wedding I posted on the 52 project, weeks 4&5, I was using the RS DR-1 interchangeably between 3 cameras: a 1D mark ii, a 5D mark ii, and a Hasselblad 500C, all very differently weighted cameras, with no hassle whatsoever. 

For those that don't like reading as much, here's some key bullet points:

Pros:

• Solid build materials on strap and mount rings
• Holds 2 DSLRs + long lens + flash easily
• There's little to know when it comes to using it. Got a tripod screw mount? You're set.
• Breaks down into 2 separate, functioning R-Straps
• Adapts easily to a variety of equipment combinations
• One size fits most*

*if your chest size exceeds 50" maybe event photography shouldn't be your gig.

Cons:

• Tripod mount rings known to slip (Google "R-strap" "fail")
• Carbinger screw locks too tightly sometimes, need pliers to get open again
• It's not cheap, $130 for a well made strap, but come on
• Makes you a little more conspicuous when shooting an outdoor event

Bottom line, this strap is worth the money if you're always fumbling around with multiple camera bodies. It does what it advertises, and takes a beating as it's only a strap. It won't make you a cooler guy or a better photographer, but it may keep you more relaxed during a hectic event which could lead to a more successful day. More often than not, it'll keep gear where you need it, when you want it, and out of harms way. In this profession, that's the best we could hope for.

Adobe CS5 Wizardry Part 1: Photoshop's New Content Aware Fill

I was given the opportunity yesterday to play around with Adobe's brand-spanking-new CS5 Creative Suite, and man, is it sweet. Was it $600 to upgrade, $1300 to buy sweet? I'll let you know once I download the 30-day trial ^_^.

Immediately upon opening Photoshop CS5, there was only one thing I wanted do: see if Content Aware Fill was all it had been hyped up to be. Let's face it, after watching the viral YouTube teaser video, it's fair to have doubts. In case any of you Adobe junkies didn't get a chance to check it out, here it is:

Pretty sweet, eh?

Ok, marketing magic aside, what can Content Aware Fill do for me, Mr. I only use Photoshop 2% of the time? Surprisingly, quite a lot in a very short amount of time.

To demonstrate my point, let's bring in my lovely, reluctant photo assisstant, (and girlfriend) Laura.

Laura before Content Aware CS5. Click for larger view.I chose this photo for Content Aware Fill because I felt it posed an interesting challenge for both myself and Photoshop CS5. Looking at this image and wanting to have anything removed from it while retaining a believable look would be nearly impossible for me for several reasons:

• Almost random patterning of stones
• Varying tones of both leaf and stone
• A deep shadow from the leaves in the area where Laura is about to be removed
• Deciding whether or not to keep the window and just drop out Laura, or throw it all out

Figuring it would be a supreme display of CS5's power, I decided on dropping the whole window, Laura included, out of the picture. Sure this would turn it into an old boring wall, but would Content Aware Fill make it look good?

Not wasting anymore time, I grabbed the smart select tool and track padded through my selection (like the n00b I am). Managing to also make use of Photoshop CS5's improved refine edge tool, I selected pretty tightly around the window and surounding stone and leaves. And as Bryan O'Neil Hughes would say, "We're just going to let Content Aware chew away at that," and apporximately 10 seconds later, I was greeted by the image you see below:

 Umm, where'd Laura go?

Content Aware CS5, you're awesome! Click for larger view.

 After picking my jaw up from off the floor, I quickly zoomed into full view of the 8Mp image to see just what exactly Content Aware Fill had done in, this seemingly effortless, 10 seconds of work. I'm about to get really nitpicky, so I suggest you also zoom into the image to your right (just click it ^_^). Wow, so Content Aware did an awesome job with the leaves. You can see it sampled from the less dense twigs from the top right corner and the larger out of focus leaves at the bottom; but other than that, the flow of the leaves seems to coincide with the rest of the image. Now let's move onto the stone. The right half of where Laura was looks outstanding! Good pattern continuity, variation of tones, and overall you can't tell there was the ridge of an open stone window there. The left half, however, is where we run into some problems. There's a lot of overly obvious sampling and discontinuous tones. My guess is it could have been brought about by three things:

• Shadow cast from the leaves above
• I didn't select enough of the leaves from the left side of the window frame
• Not enough stone was sampled from below the window frame

Overall, though, this image is definitely convincing, especially for internet resizing.

So, considering that I was able to do this in roughly 1 minute, start to finish, what does that mean for the rest of the Photoshop users out there? My guess, that things are about to get good with photo-retouching, scary good. What used to only be accomplished by paying an expert retoucher upwards of $100 per hour can be accomplished by an intern with a Bamboo tablet. Can/will this get out of control with what we are now able to effortlessly do to a photograph? In thinking this over, I'm reminded of an essay one of my art professors reccommended to me:

Walter Benjamin's "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technologically Reproducability"

I'm sure everyone will have their own opinion of how Adobe Photoshop CS5 is changing the game, please be sure to leave a comment expressing your own feelings towards it. If there are enough comments, I'd love to revisit this topic sometime in the near future.

Thanks for reading, and remember, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is, and it's probably photoshop'd. ^_^

The Logitech g13 gamepad, best. investment. ever.

To my left here stands quite possibly the best $75 I've spent in the past five years. What the heck is it? Why it's a gamepad, photo-editing-on-the-fly-pad, and omg-InDesign-is-now-slightly-workable-pad. To everybody else, it's Logitech's most unique keyboard to date, the G13.

So aside from looking like the Nintendo Power Glove's badass little cousin, what can this keypad offer us?

• 25 programmable, backlit keys, with standard joystick included
• each key can be assigned up to three single-stroke or macro functions, selectible on the top panel
• customizable lcd display, for ingame, general status, or rss feed info
• quick-macro key for assigning new keystrokes on the fly
• application recognition; when you change to a different program, the G13 follows

 At first glance, its easy to shrug off these modest specs as something that could only fend off carpal tunnel for the serious gamers out there. That was my first impression too, that is, until I saw this little gem: RPG Keys.

 "Wait! So they make a keyboard that's pre-programmed to make Photoshop and Lightroom even faster to use? Ok, so what's the catch?"

About $700 to be precise. Ouch. Like anybody else who owns any Adobe software, I don't want to shell out any more than I need to for faster functionality. That's where the beauty of the internet meets the genius of nerds with too much time on their hands. Meet Jonathon Ceci, this guy wasn't the first to figure it out, but he makes a pretty convincing argument to spend $75 for the keypad plus another $40 for his homebrewed scripts.

"But Mat," my loyal fans will say, "we don't even want to spend $40 that we don't have to!"

Well for all of you penny pinchers out there, thank Gordon's Tech & Hobby Blog for giving us a free plugin for a free app (Autohotkey) to DIY the hell outta the G13. About two hours of key-slaving later, you have yourself a workflow that laughs at stacks of wedding photos and doesn't even break a sweat at those thousands of unedited vacation pics.

What makes the workflow so much faster? Imagine: importing, exporting, spot healing, graduated filters, exposure, color, sharpening, and noise adjustments (to name a few), all without using a single slider.

"Well if I can make one Adobe program easier," I thought, "why not try a few more?"

As of this blogpost, I've tamed InDesign CS4, Photoshop, and Lightroom, with Premiere and Illustrator macros in the works. No more fumbling over Ctrl+Shift+Windows Key+Knick-knack-patty-whack bs with less than intuitive hotkeys.

For a final recap, who would like this awesome piece of ergonomic plastic? Any PC users who game more than they spend time with loved ones, PC cursed photo/video editors, and geeks with $75 burning a hole in their pocket. If you're still on the fence about the G13, buy one, check out the provided links for free apps and scripts to aid your macro'ing quest, and see what happens. Worst case scenario, you still have an awesome way to play virtually any FPS, RTS, or MMO with more ease than should be legal. Now get out there and get playing!

Other helpful links:

Adobe Lightroom HotKey List

Adobe Photoshop HotKey List

Adobe InDesign HotKey List

Logitech G13 Support