Everyone who watches TopGear knows the turns on its test track by name. Now they'll be able to drive the track themselves in the upcoming Gran Turismo 5 (when it finally comes out, that is). In any case, this will be fun, and is almost worth the $60 or whatever for the game by itself.

Fountain, originally uploaded by Stmpjmpr.

dailyshoot.com/assignments/229 : "Refresh from the summer heat today. Make a photo of water in motion. Freeze it or let it blur!"

Rotor, originally uploaded by Stmpjmpr.

dailyshoot.com/assignments/227 : "Make a photograph of something circular and crop it within a square frame."

I've mentioned Clik Elite's bags here a few times, and I keep coming back to them even though I haven't yet found one I truly love. The reason for that is that they're targeting people like me who enjoy active sports like mountain biking and want to take their photography gear along to capture their adventures, but it's hard to fit my fairly niche requirements precisely. I've purchased the Compact Sport, the Small Rangefinder Chestpack and Medium Nature in the past, although I sold the Compact Sport after determining that it was a bit too small for my needs. They've since introduced a size that's supposed to be a bit bigger than the Compact Sport and yet not the behemoth the Medium Nature is: the Probody Sport. I'll probably order one of those and try it, as it seems to be perfect for what I'm interested in for biking.

Another kind of bag I've been looking for is one which I can use as a carry-everywhere bag. I want something that, I hate to say it, is a techno-weenie man purse. I want to have a pocket that can accommodate my iPad and MiFi and some camera gear. When I started keeping an eye out for such a thing, I had my Panasonic GF-1 in mind, so it could be pretty compact. Then I came across a Clik Elite bag I hadn't seen before: the Traveler. I seemed to be right up my alley, although it appeared to be potentially big enough to carry be Nikon D700 (without the MB-D10 extension) and a standard lens, so I ordered one.

The Traveler gives a good first impression. It's smaller than I pictured in my mind, which is a nice surprise, since I'm used to getting a bag that's bigger and heavier than I expect. That said, it's just a tiny, tiny bit too small in some ways and a little too big in others. The first thing I tried was putting my iPad in the front pocket. It fits...barely, without the DODOcase I've been using; I can live with that. The small pocket on the front is clearly built with an iPhone in mind...perfect. The front flap covers the iPad pocket as well as some smaller pockets for a pen, business cards and other miscellany. These pockets can accommodate the MiFi, although not perfectly. Again, close enough.

The real question is: How well does it suit my desire to carry camera equipment? The answer, once again, is it'll do what I want, but not perfectly. The D700 fits, but it's tall enough to make it hard to close the zipper, and I'm a bit worried that the top might be pushing a little hard on the iPad. Not enough to worry a lot about, but if I smacked the bag, the eyepiece of the camera might provide enough of a lever against the iPad to cause concern. Since I'm considering this as my everyday bag, it's the biggest problem I have with the bag.

As I said, I initially had the GF-1 in mind for this bag, although being able to carry the Nikon would be great. The inside compartment of the bag is sort of too big for just the GF-1, so I don't consider it optimal for that purpose either, sadly. I normally use a LowePro SlingShot 200 AW as my grab-and-go bag; here's the Traveler next to it for comparison.

I don't have a bottom-line on the bag yet. I'll play with it a bit more and carry it for a day to decide if I'm going to keep it. I'm also planning on heading to a local shop to try out a quite different bag: a ThinkTank Retrospective 10. It's a traditional camera bag, but might be a good candidate for a daily bag too.

Hmm. The find a ride feature is a no-brainer, and a welcome addition to a service that has been iterating and improving on a consistent basis since I started using it earlier this year. Flagging hazards sounds like a good idea on the face of it, but the description of it on the blog is off-putting to me.

Having a warning on a route that there's a hazard there is a good idea, but stopping the competitive features of the site because someone flagged it? A hazard for one person is a feature for another, and reporting a hazard as "abuse" to get it removed seems clunky too. I'll have to see it in action to say for sure, but I'm not thrilled with it as-described. Besides, this is something that needs implementing now? There are a ton of other features I'd like to have higher on the list, that's for sure. I wonder who was asking for this.

Hot!

As an example of how this handy feature works, when photographing a ball game with a player on first base, a photographer can prefocus on second base, lock the focus into the memory, then focus on whomever is up at bat, follow them (using Focus Track) to first base, press the Memory button again, and snag a sharp photo of the first player sliding into second base. When shooting fast action this feature can prove to be priceless.

Great idea.

I've noticed that recent photos I've shot have been less sharp than I usually shoot. Some were due to camera shake and others just were slightly out-of-focus. One of the downsides of shooting with nice lenses is that you can't blame the equipment when the shots aren't sharp!

I've also been re-reading Joe McNally's excellent book on small strobe photography, Hot Shoe Diaries. In it, he mentions something that didn't resonate with me the first time I read the book as it did this time. He describes how he holds his camera: to his left eye, with the camera body pressed into his shoulder for stability.

I've always instinctively held my camera to my right eye (I'm right-handed, if that matters), but I tried his method after reading the section and son-of-a-bitch--I might be left-eyed! I've always been lucky to have excellent eyesight, but just before my recent 40th birthday, I recognized that my eyesight--especially close-up, is waning. I've been inadvertently testing my vision through my recent acquisition of a manual focus lens. Not only does holding the camera to my left eye feel pretty natural, but my left eye may be just a bit stronger than my right--something I'm pretty sure wasn't the case until recently. Additionally, the stable stance he recommends seems to have helped with the camera shake induced results.

McNally also describes "Da Grip" on his weblog, complete with video. Great tip!

The Daily Shoot is a simple site that gives you photo assignment/inspiration each day. There's no game--no winning or losing--just an idea to motivate you to pick up the camera. Photos are uploaded wherever you want and you simply tweet to @dailyshoot with a hashtag representing the assignment number (like #ds226). Simple and fun.

My first submission is rather banal, but was still fun and only took a couple of minutes. It also helped that I got a new lens to try out, but that's the topic of another post. In fact, today's Daily Shoot assignment involves circular objects, and the rim of that lens is circular...hmmm.

iPad

Neighborgoods is a site designed to help people share items with their neighbors. Great idea, with a nice site.

Wonder Woman's 600th issue hits the stands tomorrow, complete with a new "reimagined" storyline and new costume. I'm not sure I dig it, but I'm willing to give it a look if they make it available via their iPad app; I'm done buying physical comics.

Nice! The old Flickr photo page was really long-in-the-tooth in my opinion, so this is a welcome improvement. I particularly like the arrow key navigation, "lights out" mode and the easier "share" options. Great job so far!

Great news about my favorite suite of GTD apps. I can't wait for the iPad implementation!

Looks pretty good. That's more bad news for Flip/Cisco.

Here's a set of photos from the areas affected by the BP oil spill. It's a nice set of images of a terrible situation. Here's more about the TEDxOilSpill Expedition.

More sucky Lightroom 3 news:

For those who use lenses without profiles, Adobe Labs offers a separate app, Adobe Lens Profile Creator, which you can use to make your profiles. Unfortunately, if you've got one of the new Micro 4/3 cameras, like Panasonic's slick GF1, you're basically screwed, there is currently no way to create a profile for Micro 4/3 cameras.

Gah. The one case I'd have used the feature for.