Bicotech.net

Brad's technology and security musings

Hybrid photo day packs compared: Tenba MIXX vs CLIK Impulse Sling vs Kata DR-467i

With some travel on the horizon I've been in the market for a photo daypack, which I define as a medium sized backpack with padded protections for photo gear and room for normal travel daypack items.  There are a number of dedicated photography backpacks that I desire, but in this instance they would only tempt me into bringing more gear than I should.  After extensive online research and handling a number of the bags available at local camera shops, I narrowed down my needs to three bags, one each from Tenba, CLIK and Kata.  I ruled out a number of nice Lowepro and Tamrac bags to settle on these three.  Here were the guiding principles and requirements I used to ultimately select these three:

  • A hybrid bag that would comfortable carry a subset of my camera gear and have decent space for other day pack items (water, jackets, snacks)
  • Doesn't tempt me to bring all of my camera tech
  • Large enough to hold all "base station" gear for hauling stuff between hotels (chargers, cables, cords, etc)
  • A backpack or sling that could weigh in less than 20 lbs loaded, and seems to meet comfort requirements
  • Sufficiently padded camera protection
  • Adequate for toting a small laptop or iPad
  • Small enough to fit under an airline seat
  • Doesn't scream "I'm a camera bag"

The photographic gear I intend to haul daily:

  • Canon T2i (compact DSLR)
  • 17-40 mm lens normally kept on the body
  • 70-200 mm zoom lens
  • 1.4 extender for the zoom
  • optionally, a 50mm prime
  • Daily necessities: lens cleaner, batteries, memory cards, rain sleeves, and a filter or two

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From left to right: Tenba, Kata, CLIK

The Tenba MIXX

I had high hopes for this daypack.  It seemed to be a great balance in capacity and size, but ended up smaller than I had expected.

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Pros:

  • Overall size would be just right, and could even be a little larger
  • Thin profile 
  • Top compartment opens into camera compartment to convert it to a full backpack style daypack.
  • Side zippers give some access to the camera compartment (to change a lens, maybe)

Cons:

  • General use compartment far smaller than anticipated
  • No laptop sleeve
  • Interior spaces are all black, making it hard to identify small objects
  • Camera section not able to easily accomodate large lenses; not very flexible as the velcro dividers are somewhat limited by where they sewed in velcro patches
  • No mesh pockets for tripods or water bottles

The CLIK Impulse Sling

Wow, this sling really impressed me right out of the box, and gave me pause to highly consider this bag.  I chose the grey-green color and it is a slick looking bag.

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Pros:

  • Overall size is just right, easy to store, easy to stash
  • Camera pocket can open from the side allowing convenient camera access while "slung"
  • Camera pockets and dividers are fully configurable.  All materials will stick to velcro which increases the flexibility
  • An iPad just fits into the top general storage compartment
  • Smart use of space for storage on all sides of the bag
  • Mesh water bottle/tripod pocket
  • Comfortable sling and stabilizing strap
  • Holds most all of my daily camera equipment (minus the 50mm prime, which I may have been able to make space)

Cons:

  • No laptop sleeve, or slot, but the iPad still fits and is decently protected
  • Side access to camera is risky, just during the review I dropped my camera and extra lens on the floor when I casually moved the bag and didn't realize the zippers were partially open.  Other similar bags have retention straps or clips to keep the flap from opening fully.
  • Pricey - this was about 50% more in price than the other two bags reviewed

The Kata DR-467i

I discovered this bag while researching the Kata Bumble Bee and Mini Bee bags, which I ultimately ruled out.  Out of the box this is the largest of the three bags, and due to a well padded laptop slot, is the stiffest.  However, it is light for its size.

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Pros:

  • Top storage compartment is large and flexible, and can zipper open to combine the camera section into the top
  • An iPad just fits into the top general storage compartment, and swims in the laptop compartment
  • Smart use of space for storage with a couple of extra zippered pockets accessible from the outside
  • Mesh tripod pocket zips away if not in use.
  • Comfortable backpack straps
  • Holds most all of my daily camera equipment and then some
  • I was able to fit my 70-200 vertically in a camera pocket by leaving room for it to tilt as I close the camera section
  • Includes raincover

Cons:

  • Bigger than expected, but not overly large when in use.  Some concern about stuffing under the airline seats.
  • Like the CLIK, the camera section does not easily accomodate large lenses; if the camera section gets too wide, it doesn't easily zipper shut
  • Camera section is not very flexible as the velcro dividers are somewhat limited by where they sewed in velcro patches

 

Why I didn't choose the Tenba MIXX

  • Overall too small for long time use.  While it could meet my short term trip needs, it would suffer from design compromises over the long term.
  • All black interiors are not ideal
  • No laptop protection

Why I didn't choose the CLIK Impulse Sling

  • First of all, I almost did choose the CLIK bag
  • If it were half the price, I would have kept it for local everyday use
  • While it meets my daypack usages, I fear it is too small for when I need to load up the chargers and other gear to move between cities and hostels

Why I chose the Kata DR-467i

  • It is a very flexible and spacious bag which meets my near term trip requirements and can support a variety of future use cases as well
  • While the camera section is only mildly configurable, I found a configuration that made it work for me and the gear I hope to carry along.
  • Extremely well padded laptop compartment (overkill for this trip, but good for future uses)
  • Has decent amount of D rings and other places to extend the pack
  • I do have some apprehensions about its stiffness and the fact that it is a hair larger than I would prefer - this is probably worth a debrief after a few travels
  • The price came down $15 with a surprise manufacturer's rebate in-box.

In closing, I'm excited to choose a winner, but all three could easily play a functional role in my photo travels. 

Results of Summer Jewelry classes at Mesa Arts Center

Some of you may know that I've been a bit busy this summer, and a lot of that was due in large part to attending "Basics of Jewelry Fabrication" two nights a week at the Mesa Arts Center.  I believe I am now hooked on a new hobby and will  be returning as soon as my schedule permits.  I highly encourage anyone with a curiosity to come down and give it a try for a semester.

The ring is a mokume-gane inlay of copper and silver layered on silver and then formed into the ring.

The dome pendant is copper on copper with silver plated screws securing the "patch".

The tiger pendant is set in a silver bezel and suspended by the two poled "gate".

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3D printing to the rescue - sliding shed doors and a new design on Thingiverse

Finally had a chance to use my 3D printer, and I mean really use it.  I've printed out tons of calibration cubes and other inconsequential pieces, but they were all essentially just tuning exercises or quick demonstrations for friends and family.  

But after a recent upgrade as documented here, the quality has markedly improved, and the confidence went straight to my head.  So I fixed something. 

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We have an Arrow metal shed beside our house, and after seven years of use and wear by the elements, the doors were literally falling off their sliders.  In fact the sliders were being ground down to nothing, as can be seen here, on the right:

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While the manufacturer sells the parts as part of a tune-up kit, I decided to design and print the replacement parts myself.  The results were functional, which is all I needed.  This photo shows the progression of mistakes and learnings until I created the final design.

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Printing (as illuminated with my new LED light kit):

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And the new pieces in operation:

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 The new piece is on Thingiverse.com here.

A visit to the Makerbot BotCave (as well as a MK6 upgrade and new LEDs)

On a recent trip to New York I was fortunate to have time for a quick trip to Brooklyn and a visit to the friendly folks at Makerbot Industries in their BotCave HQ.

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Matt @MakerBot was able to hold a recent web order for BotCave pickup, and upon entering I was face to face with Bre and the rest of the crew at MakerBot.  A few moments later Matt appeared with my new MK6 Stepstruder upgrade kit, and over the next half hour Matt showed us around - we felt like VIPs.  While Matt helped me increase my spending on a new LED lighting kit, the others continued to entertain my wife and mother-in-law with more and more examples of the flexibility and capability of a MakerBot.  

The LEDs look great installed - I put a few inches on the inside top front of my TOM and a few inches on the bottom side of the Z-axis platform (you can see them reflecting behind the build underway.  The photo doesn't do it justice, these LEDs are BRIGHT.

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 Thanks to Matt and the gang at MakerBot for the hospitality and the top notch service!

Retired Four Star Gen. Hayden on over-classification

This link from Wired.com's Threat Level summarizes some recent statements from retired four star Gen. Hayden, formerly of the NSA and CIA.  And he is correct.  By being lazy and over classifying items as secret, top secret, and super duper top secret, we create a huge access problem.  With so many secrets, we will fail to create workable processes to allow individual access to individual documents.  Instead, you create huge pools of secrets, and then decide only whether a member is permitted into the pool.  The wikileaks "problem" is that a single staffer with a business need for access was granted access to far too many things.  The secondary problem is that far too many of those things were probably not justifiably "secret".

In the popular culture, the availability of 10,000 applications for my smart phone is viewed as an unalloyed good. It is not — since each represents a potential vulnerability. But if we want to shift the popular culture, we need a broader flow of information to corporations and individuals to educate them on the threat. To do that we need to recalibrate what is truly secret.

PCI DSS, a compliance specification for retail environments, does similar.  A primary unit of measurement for the spec determines whether or not a computing resource handles card data, or does not.  While it may be adequate for protecting card data records, the concept does not scale for protecting other related resources in the same environments.  What does it mean to protect medical records, loyalty records and credit card records (and the resulting compliance requirements) in the same environment?
 

Verifone's open letter to Square

While I'm a fan of Square's motivation to simplify the cost and process of accepting credit card payments for small merchants, I've never understood how they maintained they were compliant with retail security specifications (ie PCI DSS).  While apps are minimally sandboxed in iOS environments, their app has no way of knowing the integral state of an iOS device and thus is open to all sorts of software attacks, imagined or not.  

But interestingly, Verifone chose to call them to the rug by highlighting the relative ease of mis-using the credit card reading hardware dongle which plugs into the headphone jack.  This caught me by surprise, as I consider it a trivial challenge to acquire or assemble card skimming devices.  But on reflection this resonates with another central belief that I hold: that security is just another way to look at reliability.  Told differently: someone is using your product or service in a way you didn't design intend, and the result is unexpected (at best) behavior.  We tend to design products based on what they will do for us and how they'll improve our experience, but we create vulnerabilities when we fail to understand how else the products can be used.