After a bit of delay due to incompletely written address, I finally got my hands on the Everyday messenger bag by Peak Design today.

This was not a normal purchase, but as before, I backed a Kicstarter campaign Peak Design had a few months ago. There I chosen this charcoal messenger bag, with the field pouch and the capture lens clip. So quite a lot of things to try out and get a feel for :)

So let’s look today at my first impressions of the Everyday messenger bag.

Design & Details

For a moment after I unpacked the bag, I was a bit disappointed, that the strap is aranged as one would carry it on the right shoulder. Even all the photos attached show it being carried like that. But luckily, it quite easy and straightforward to remove the shoulder strap from the bag, and just turn it around, and attach it back on. Like this one can set it up for any shoulder, and you will have the shoulder adjustment on the right side (thats in the front). Of course one has to also switch the positions of the waist straps, but thats also quite easy.

 
There are so many small details on the bag, that show that the designer team thought about different situations. Between the color coded pockets (green for empty, red for full cards or batteries), hidden phone compartment, hidden keys compartment, easily adjustable dividers (really easily), hidden cross strap and more, they thought of almost everything (maybe everything, time will tell :))

The most interesting design choice are the multiple attach points for the cover flap. They allow the bag to adjust it’s size to the content, from 13.5l up to 21.5l in volume. This removes one of the problems with most bags (not just camera ones), that even empty, they are just too big. Another very nice part, are the dividers. They are so versatile and easy to adjust, that I’m surprised that nobody used a stile like this before.

 
I’m quite happy that they didn’t skimped on the shoulder strap. It’s really wide and nicely padded. Also the length seems about right. They included an interesting locking mechanism, that makes lengthening and shortening the strap much easier.

And another very nice design choice is the flat bottom of the bag. With that, it can stand on its own, without tiping towards any of the sides. The bottom is even covered by a sort off rubber material, to prevent water damage.

Size

First impression of the bag is, that it really looks small. This is probably due to a quite unusual shape, sort of similar to a V, where the top is wider than the bottom. Additionally, the cover flap can attach in multiple positions, so it can change the size as one needs it. This does makes it smaller than a comparable capacity bag.

 
I tried it out by putting my most carried gear into it. With a Canon 70-200, 28-70 and a 16-35 attached to the Sony a7r, I was still able to close the bag to its smallest size, without any problems. This means that I can still put the pouch on top, and still have quite a lot of space.

Build quality

During the years I had quite a few camera bags. My favorites were the two ones I use right now, one by Domke and one by Think-tank. Quality vise, the Everyday messenger bag seems really similar. I found no manufacturing errors on mine, all seems to be well made. I especially like the zippers, that ale completely covered up from outside and move easily.

 
Time will tell how it fares, but I do have quite high hopes here.

The Field Pouch

Together with the Everyday messenger bag, I also got the Field pouch. This is a small pouch, that you can use to keep smaller things inside the bag. You can even use it as a small shoulder bag, if you have a camera strap made by Peak Design or attach it to your belt.

It uses the same trick as the messenger bag, so it can close in multiple positions, so being as small or as big as you need it to be.

First impressions

I’m really impressed by the bag. Still will need to see how it is in regular use, but for now, it looks really well designed, with lost of small touches, and nice build quality. I’m really happy with my purchase :)

For more about the bag and other Peak design products, check out the Peak Design homepage (btw. you can use the code HDRSHOOTER for a 10% discount of all Peak Design products :)).

If you are still in the New years mood, here are two high resolution wallpapers for you. Both are formated exactly for the Surface pro 4, but since they are both quite a high resolution, they will look fine on any screen up to a 4K one.

You can download them, with all the other available wallpapers from the Wallpapers page.

As every year, it’s time for my favorite photos from this year. I visited some new, some old places this time, so there have been some very nice photo opportunities.

So let’s hope for even better 2016, filled with great times, interesting locations and the perfect light. And here are some of my favorite photos taken this year.

Btw. just few weeks ago, the blog achieved a very nice milestone. 2000 post overall :) With a post a day, thats around 5 and a half years of updates. When I started such a long time ago, I never thought I would keep it up for so long. So thank you for all your visits to the blog, and to many, many more updates to come :)

Also here you can see my favorites from past years: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010 :)

For today, I will show you how this photo from the back side of the Hungarian parliament was edited. So let’s get to it :)

This shot was taken by placing the camera around 1-2cm above the new fountain that is right behind the parliament. I had to wait a moment, as the water stream is not always the same, and it only creates a nice reflection when it slows down. Also I had to wait until the military patrol passes by, so I don’t have them in the shot (felt a little like a game there :)).

 
So when you compare the final and the original photo, you will see what needed to be corrected. The scene had quite a huge dynamic range, as night shots usually have. I wanted to tone down the lights, and get some color into the sky. I also wanted to remove some of the distractions from the shot, like flares and the tent on the right.

I started as always in Lightroom. Here I removed the chromatic aberrations and applied lens corrections. From there I continued in Oloneo Photoengine. Here it did wonderful job combining the shots, but the colors got a bit too strong. So I used the Natural HDR mode to tone them down, but also saved the more colorful version, to use in Photoshop to add color partially.

From here I continued in Photoshop with following edits (layers numbered from bottom up):
1. Oloneo Photoengine result in Natural HDR mode
2. The more colorful result, but set to 30% opacity, to get more color.
3+4+5. Retouched out a light trail on the left and a moving flag. Also removed lens flares on the right.
6+7. -1EV and +2EV to remove ghosting from moving flags.
8. Darkened the bright lights from the -2EV exposure
9+10+11. Selected a part from the left size, flipped it and transformed to fit the right side, over the tent. Then used the clone stamp, to create more of the floor in front of it.
12. Color efex pro contrast to get a bit more detail in the sky, and more local contrast.
13. More overall contrast using curves.
14. I felt the bright areas became a bit too dark after all the edits, so I used the original HDR result to brighten them back up.
15. A bit more exposure on the sky, to make it brighter.
16. And to finish a bit more exposure overall using curves.

 
And that’s all I did with this image. To find out more on how I edit, check out the guides and before after categories on this blog, or check out my video tutorial series here:

Over the years I added a lot of different stuff to the blog, and some of those got a bit lost under all the other stuff. So let me refresh the Zoomable panoramas section today, with a new zoomable panorama. This time it’s a zoomable 120Mpix panorama from the Dubai marina, taken late at night. You can find it here, and all the other panoramas are here.