My Detailing Mojo

It's back! Ever since the Iswara had left the house (my sis took it outstation for long term), I got to make use of my Vios as a daily driver. It has not been driven frequently for the past one year and the mileage could be less than any of the garage queens: 7600km in 2 years! Though the car was parked under the porch, but the amount of dusts settled on it are harming the paint quite badly.

Since it's being driven out more often, washing it more frequently makes sense to me now. The paint is very rough, but still beads water quite well due to previous UQD application. The excellent weather encouraged me to give it a good wash even I'm back home late from work. After the wash, I clayed the horizontal panels (bonnet, roof and boot) which usually get contaminated quicker than the vertical panels. Slapped on the Meguiar's M16 Professional Paste Wax and the finish became silky smooth. The reflected image on the paintwork turned to be sharper abit, but more room for improvement can only be achieved when I polish it. And that's when I have the time to pull out my RB...:)

Camera Bag Craze (Part 4)

Welcome back to my blog for the Part 4 of Camera Bag Craze series. Before you start reading this section, let me ask you a couple of questions: Have you ever felt tiring to carry so many equipments during a short trip? Do you feel like leaving all your heavy fast zoom lenses and flash light behind and just bring along a body without battery grip attached with a short fast prime lens? How about a bag which gives you easy access to your camera within seconds? If all of your answers are yes to the above questions, then you might be interested in the ThinkTank Photo Urban Disguise 10 or 20.

I used to love zoom lenses alot as it gives me the flexibility for composing a picture. Modern zoom lenses such as the Canon L series zoom lenses are able to produce as good image quality compared to fast prime lenses. However there are several downsides, such as slow aperture (occasionally even an F/2.8 zoom lens ain't fast enough!), heavy weight (more elements) and larger size. Since I can cope with limited focal length choice for my own leisure shooting, it's still OK for me to just shoot with single fast prime lens (either EF35mm F/2 or EF50mm F/1.4 USM) on the EOS5D. Either lens when coupled with the EOS5D weigh around 1kg only.

TTP UD20 is my choice for urban shooting. Lots of thoughts had been put in for such disguised design, as the name suggested. It looks like one of those formal luxury document bags. I keep my passport behind the main flap which is secured by a huge buckle and two strips of Velcros. This compartment is also designed to store a Canon 1D-series body (no lens attached). All Urban Disguise models (10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60) have only 10.5cm of internal depth measurement for the main compartment. This will restrict the storage of 1D attached with lens in the main compartment. However, I particularly like this bag due to its low profile design, since I don't plan to attach battery grip with the body whenever I use this bag. I would recommend this bag to Rangefinder (RF) owners too. UD20 comes along with plenty of internal dividers, which allows me to create a room for an extra fast prime lens such as the EF85mm F/1.8 USM. But of course, I do use this bag to host EOS5D attached with larger lense such as EF24-105mm F/4L IS USM, or EF17-40mm F/4L USM, or EF135mm F/2L USM too.

Think Tank Photo Urban Disguise 20