I've always carried power strips and/or extension cords in my demo and travel bags; there are just never enough power outlets at the demo site or the hotel room (especially since I have to power my computer, cameras, wifi hub, cellphone, and sometime other people's computers). However, the problem with power strips is the outlets get blocked by the bulky transformers that much of my gear has.

Enter the PowerSquid. This is such an obvious idea, I'm surprised no one thought of it earlier. It's a power strip where each outlet is on its own cord. Simple. It was a huge lifesaver on this last trip and has earned a permanent place in my bag.

I picked mine up at Fry's here in Seattle for under $10 I think. You can also get them online.

Thanks to Gizmodo for the original pointer.

I got my new Canon SD500 this week. As you may recall, this new camera replaces my dear old Canon S230 which died in the line during our recent vacation.

This new camera is sweet. It's fast, fast, fast compared to my S230. Start-up time is zippy, shutter delay is short, and shut down is fast. It's also smaller, over twice the resolution, and shoots much longer videos. In short, it's better in every way over my S230 as far as I can tell.

I can't wait to take it out for a real test. I haven't been this excited about a new camera in a while.

My Canon S230 met an untimely end during our vacation. This little three megapixel digital camera was in my pocket or backpack all the time, producing great photos when the moment caught me without a more substantial camera.

My trusty sidearm died in the line of duty. I had both kids alone, waiting for the evening fireworks show at Epcot. As is often the case when I'm alone with the kids, I just had my S230 (I need at least one hand free to corral children). I had the camera balanced on top of a pointy fence post to stabilize it for the long shutter evening shots when it slipped out of my hand and dashed onto the rocks below. The kids were able to scramble down after the show to retrieve the parts (everything came off -- doors, memory card, battery, the whole works.) The shot above is one of the last ones before it returned to the darkroom in the sky.

Since I can't live without a pocket camera, I placed an order today for a new Canon SD500. This is a 7.1 megapixel camera in an even smaller body (yes, I know the SD550 has been announced. I can't wait and the change isn't important to me.) I hope it's a good successor to my good ol' S230.

(Some shot details: This was shot using the "Night" mode on the S230. This holds the shutter open longer after the flash goes off, allowing the background to get exposed more. None of the lights in the background or the Epcot dome thingy would have shown up otherwise. Normally, the little flash isn't enough to light up anything too far away, but the Japanese gate was pretty close and had some lights on it, so the longer exposure allowed it to fill in. I love trying to make the camera's automatic settings do what I want.)

There's a small set of things I always have in my pockets. My cellphone. A pen. An LED flashlight. These are all useful to me almost every day. But the thing I've carried most consistently over the past few years is a Spyderco Delica, aka the "Clip It"

The Delica is small, lockback folding knife. There are lots of these kinds of knives, but the Delica stands out in a few ways.

First, it has a clip on the side that allows me to hang it on the corner of my pocket; the clip is reversable so I can carry on either side of my body (and I do). This has a few benefits. First, it's just way more comfortable to carry this way; it's not turning sideways in the bottom of my pocket like the Swiss army knife I used to carry. Second, I always know exactly where it is and in what orientation.

This leads to the next benefit. I can open and close the knife with one hand, quickly if necessary. Invariably, when I need to cut something, I'm already holding it.

Next, the knife is super comfortable to hold and use. It's small and light (and short enough to legally carry virtually everywhere). The bump on the back of the blade is a perfect place to rest my thumb. Together with the slight curve on bottom, I feel secure that I can push a bit on the blade with less risk of sliding forward. This alone makes it preferable to me than most of the straight handled folding knives.

Finally, it's got a good blade. It's sharp and holds an edge. The blade comes in three configurations -- serrated, smooth, and combination (half serrated, half smooth). I prefer the smooth or combination blades. Spyderco also makes a trainer version with a dull blade.

While the knife looks purposeful and a bit scary to some (and I'm sure it would be useful in a fight), I find myself relying on it almost every day for some mundane task -- cutting down a box for recycling, peeling an orange, cutting out a newspaper clipping. I use the knives so often that I am acutely aware now when I don't have one (like on flights after 9/11.) These are useful tools, well-designed and well-made, and relatively affordable. What more could you ask for?

Honestly, I don't use support for my camera enough, but when I do, I'm always happy with the results. There's no faster way to negate a great lens and body than by moving them around when you're shooting.

I have four support systems depending on what I'm doing.

My main support is a Bogen 3021 tripod with Giotto MH-1000 ballhead. This is a nice tripod with good height; I can raise it up high enough to get some unique perspectives. However, it's too heavy and long for me normally to carry a lot, so I don't use it often; I've been lusting over a newer carbon fiber tripod for some time and will finally bite the bullet someday. (Note, the updated version of the 3021 looks like has a shorter closed length which would be attractive to me, but it's still heavy at 5.1 lbs.) I switched from a tilt-pan-zoom head to the ballhead a while back. It's a lot easier to use in most cases.

More often, I use my Bogen 3016 monopod. (This is no longer available. I think the Manfrotto/Bogen 679 is the closest currently available version.) I've added a Bogen 3232 tilt head so I can flop my camera into portrait mode. I've made it easier to carry the monopod by adding a Giles Tactical Sling; this is actually a rifle sling that happens to be perfectly suited and cut to carry the monopod. Super convenient.

On top of both of these, I use a quick release clamp from Really Right Stuff with the matching plates for my cameras and lenses. These guys make beautifully milled clamps and custom plates for each camera body. They're a joy to use and totally rock solid. Their site is also fun to read; they have thought a lot about how to build the right gear for shooters. You have to have quick-release plates if you shoot a lot; turning the little screw knob to attach and detach your gear will give you RSI and drive you nuts.

I always have a Manfrotto 3007 Tabletop tripod in my bag. This is a little "pocket" tripod, but it's no cheap plastic support. This is a well-machined metal guy with a ballhead and an extender to give it more height. Super versatile. I've even used it to steady (not hold!) my big 70-200 2.8. It packs up pretty small and comes with its own case.

Finally, I have a cheap plastic Velbon video tripod that I got for free with my video camera. It's a piece of crap, but it's light and folds up small enough it fit in my rollaboard suitcase. It's a good reminder that having high quality gear that is too big or heavy to use is useless.

So, some closing thoughts on supports. It's nice to have a tripod that puts the camera at your eye level while you're standing up. It's actually been useful to have one that goes even higher so I can project a camera over the crowd or a fence (I have to stand on something to see through the camera then.) However, this is somewhat antithetical to having a tripod that is small enough to carry. So, either get two, resign yourself to carrying the big one, or live with the trade-off. I'll probably get two.

Also, if you're shooting with a tripod, it's nice to use a remote release. I love shooting this way. It allows me to be more interactive with the subject. I've also used the remote release when the tripod is too high for me to see through or when I'm sticking the camera out somewhere with the monopod. Finally, it keeps the camera from moving at all on the tripod.

Previous "What's in my camera bag" posts:
Keep it clean

I'm continually messing with my camera gear and accessories and have slowly come up with the set of stuff I like (for now, anyway.) It turns out I carry a lot of stuff depending on what I'm doing, so I thought I'd break this into a few posts.

In addition to the camera and no matter how light I'm travelling, I always have some way to clean the lens. Expensive lenses and cameras and great photo training are meaningless if your lens is filthy. Sometimes, I just have a handkerchief, but usually I have one or both of the following:

• A LensPen : This is the best little gadget. Easy to carry, cheap, and useful. One end has a little chamois tip, the other is a retractable brush. I use the MiniPRO Everyone should have one (or more).
• Lens cleaning cloth. My favorite is a big chamois one I found in Japan, but I can't recall the brand (got it at Yodobashi, if that helps...) I also have half-a-dozen little microfiber cloths I've picked up at various times and have them stuck in pretty much every pocket of my bags.

I don't carry spray cleaner, but I keep some at home. Before my trips and big shoots, I clean all my glass thoroughly, and I usually do it again afterwards. I haven't really tried a lot of different brands. I'm currently using V-Vax Products Residual Oil Remover. I can't find a website for them, but I understand it's pretty widely available. It works well for me. I use old undershirts to clean the glass. (I read somewhere once that you should never use wood based fibers on lenses. Dunno if that's true, but it seems reasonable.)

Anyway, enough on lens cleaning. Stay tuned for more photo gear rants...

Addendum: The brand of my favorite cleaning cloth is "MicroDear". You can get them from Adorama.

I'm getting ready for a two week long business trip to Asia. My Toshiba Tablet PC is great, but it doesn't have a DVD drive, and I don't want to carry a player. My solution is to rip a stack of DVDs to DivX so I can watch them on my laptop without a DVD drive. (Divx is like MP3, but for video. It's a compression scheme that has reasonably high quality at reasonably good compression rates.)

I've tried this many times before with limited success. I had a lot of bad results, e.g. out-of-sync audio, messed up aspect ratios, and so on. It always took a batch of tools, and it was just time-consuming.

So, I was very please to find a pair of tools that have finally taken most of the pain out of this effort. DVD Decryptor does a good job getting the data off the DVD onto your hard drive for processing, then AutoGK converts that data to Divx, converts the audio to MP3, and syncs the two.

There are very few settings, and the ones that there are almost understandable. The only ones I really mess with are the size (I picked 1G per movie to allow me to put them on my USB flash drive), and the encoding format (I picked DivX instead of Xvid because I already had the decoders installed and because there are some DivX DVD players coming out now.)

It's still not as easy as ripping MP3s, but it's getting closer. It's very cool to have a stack of my movies on my harddrive so I can watch them on demand. I love it.

Doom9.net is the best resource around for this kind of activity. It's still pretty geeky though, so roll up your sleeves.

(Yes, yes, yes, I'm only ripping DVDs I own, blah blah blah.)

Get Divx5 Get DVD Decryptor (I can't link to the download directly. Click the link and find the "Download" link on the Doom9 page.)
Get AutoGK

I ran across the Intel Application Accelerator recently. This is a free Windows app from Intel that optimizes performance for Intel motherboards, especially unblocking disk I/O.

I installed this on my old 1ghz Dell and saw a dramatic improvement. Some video encoding stuff I was doing dropped from an average of five hours to around 2.5 hours -- amazing.

It only supports certain chipsets, so you have to read a bit first to make sure it won't hose your machine. (I got my chipset info from the Dell support site; I'm not sure of a way to determine it from Windows.) I'd recommend setting a system restore point before installing it just to be sure. (You can find System Restore in Start>Programs>Accessories>System Tools.)

Information here Download here

I'm not sure if I should think this is cool, funny, or creepy. The "Quantum Sleeper" can fold up to become a "safe room" to protect you from intruders, terrorist attacks, or your murderous 4 year old son. I like that you can watch DVDs or play video games while you wait for the police or Army to show up (or Michael's baby sitter in our case). Another nice touch is that you can link multiple of these beds so the parents can close up the kids beds too and then talk to the them via some kind of radio. I'm sure Andrew and Michael would love that. Not.

Of course, if you were going to get one, you'd add the optional tear gas spray, robotic arms, and projectile weapons. Unfortunately, that would add more to the 1658lbs for a queen size unit (if I was going to be trapped in this thing for a few days waiting out a gas attack, I think I'd opt for the king sized bed.)

Anyway, check it out.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the link.

or, a day with the Canon 1D Mark II.

So, a while back I drooled (in blogspace) over Canon's hot new digital SLR, the Canon 1D Mark II. This weekend, my dear friend Charlotte (who is the editor for MSN Photos, a great photographer, a old friend) was gracious enough to part with her new 1D Mark II so I could play with it. After lusted after this new body for so long, I could hardly believe my luck. I had Michael's birthday party that afternoon for the perfect opportunity to test it out.

Well, I have to say, I didn't love it. There were definitely things to love. The autofocus is much faster than on my 10D. The new E-TTL-II flash metering is simply outstanding. And the speed. Oh, the speed. 8.5 frames per second leaves my 3 fps in the dust. It was just the thing to get the perfect shot of kids running around. (It's actually almost too fast. I had a hard time getting just one photo; I wound up with a lot of multiples.)

Still, I'm not sure it's the camera for me. This it the first professional Canon I've shot, film or digital. There were a bunch of odd things like you need to hold a button down while turning knobs or whatever to change settings. I suppose they do it so you don't accidentily change your settings, but what a pain. Similarly, there are a bunch of settings you can't seem to change in the field; you need to change them using your computer. And it's big and heavy. I kind of like the vertical shooting grip, but the extra size and weight are a bit much for me.

It's a supermodel sexy camera, no doubt, and I loved my brief fling. But, at the end of the day, I think I'll stick with the girl next door. (Now, of course, if I could have both...)