They say first impressions count. It's certainly true here. Last night I picked up the latest addition to my camera bag armoury - the Gura Gear Kiboko. Now, these are not common bags so I want to do a proper review on it as my first thoughts suggest I may have found one of the best camera bags on the market.

Nothing is perfect, but from the moment I picked it up, I was impressed.It's a rucksack like many of my other bags, but crucially it is airline carry on sized. Somehow though, it sitll holds an enormous amount of kit. By enormous I mean it could take a 500mm and 600mm at the same time. Yes, a lot of kit.

So, what are the first features I spotted?

The weight. This bag weighs 1.8Kg. compared that to my biggest Kata bag (the only real one to compared it to in terms of how much it holds) and the difference is 3Kg. Yes, you read that right. 3 whole kilograms. That's a lot and make a hell of a difference. 

The Harness. While it's not a fully adjustable mountaineering harness like on my Macpac Ascent climbing pack, it's very good. Very very good in fact. I'm 6'4" and had no problem getting it comfortable. 

Build quality. It's made from Polyant VX21. This is the material they use to make the sails on the America's Cup boats. It's light and it's tough. And the bag is put together so well, it feels bomb-proof. 

The Padding. A little more testing is needed before I give it an unreserved thumbs up, but I was worried before it arrived that since it's a lightweight bag, the padding would be minimal. Not so. It is minila, but it's tough and seems like it will indeed absorb much more shock that it's skinnyness would suggest. 

There you go, that's it for now. Keep reading for the next installment and some more in-depth thoughts on this amazing bag, as well as photos showing just how much kit it can hold! 

Right then, well it seems you mostly did pretty well in the quiz from last week. The question was “What is the maximum sync speed of the EOS 50D?” The answer, as 73% of you got right, is 1/250sec.

So what is the maximum sync speed and why is it useful to know? There are two main reasons for using High Speed Sync – the first one being to make the background darker – in other words to achieve a shutter speed fast enough that the background (ambient) light forms less of the exposure, with the flash lighting the subject. We’ll deal with this more in a future post, as today we’re going to look at the second reason – the use of flash with fast lenses. The following two images were taken a couple of seconds apart. The lighting is exactly the same in both of them – a flash off camera to the left of the subject. They were taken on an EOS 5D Mark II with an EF 50mm f/1.2L USM lens. If you don’t use high speed sync flash, you end up with a situation where your shutter speed is locked at the maximum sync speed. This varies by camera, so here’s a quick list for the current models:
EOS 500D – 1/200sec
EOS 40D/50D – 1/250sec
EOS 5D/5D Mark II – 1/200sec
EOS 1Ds Mark III – 1/250sec
EOS 1D Mark III – 1/300sec

The problem with not going higher than the sync speed is that to get the right amount of light from the ambient light sources (ie to avoid overexposing the image) you need to stop down the aperture. This leads to image number 1 – not a bad shot, but too much of a distracting background.

1/200sec, f/11

If you enable high speed sync flash, then you can turn the shutter speed up – all the way to the maximum shutter speed  (up to 1/8000sec on most EOS models). That gives you picture 2: - a better image due to a less distracting background. Notice how the exposure and lighting are the same in both.

1/6400sec, f/2

The idea of high speed sync is that the flash fires several times rather than just at the start or end of the exposure. It needs to do this as the shutter only uncovers part of the sensor at a time during the faster than sync speed shutter speeds. Think of it as a moving slit passing over the image, since that is actually what's happening.

It’s not free though – you’ll lose some flash power as the flash has to work harder over a longer duration, so you may need to move your lights around to get them closer to the subject, or use more than one Speedlite to increase the amount of light available to you.

High speed sync is available on the Speedlite 550EX, 580EX, 580EX II, 420Ex, 430EX, 430EX II, Macro Ringlite MR-14EX and Macro Twinlite MT-24-EX.

Are you creative or reactive? It's an internal discussion I've been known to have on occasion and in fact, a discussion I've had with several other photographers in the past. It seems the two are mutually exclusive. But are they really?

I'd firmly put myself in the reactive category. I photograph things that exist and that require little more from me than an ability to capture them as they are - landscapes, wildlife etc. It suits my mind set much more. I'm a technical person - I look at camera specs and they make sense. I can see the technology and how to apply it. The stumbling block for me is trying to make interesting pictures. Sure if the subject is good, then it's no problem. But how do you make something look good even after it's been done many times before? How do you come up with that 'different' shot. 

Some people do this regularly. They are the creative types. Those that have ideas and put them into practice. You may think this is the best way to be, but from my experience, you usually find that the most creative photographers are the least technical. Sometimes they have a great idea, but they have no way of knowing how to achieve it. At the other end of the scale is the technical person. they have all this knowledge of how to do things, but they struggle for subjects and situations to apply them to. Of course, the very best photographers are those that sit in the middle. They have some creative and some technical expertise and they're able to put the two of them together. 

From my point of view, I only get creative with a subject when I think of a technique to use on it. You see photography for me is about experimentation. Why take the same style of shot time and again when you could use 101 different techniques to get something different? I'd rather take fewer images but keep trying new techniques to push my self into new areas.  Sure you need to build up a style, but you also need to break your style now and again. It's like my now well worn mantra that "photography has no rules - only guidelines to get you started". 

So where do you fit? Where do your ideas come from? Do you look at the work of other photographers and try to emulate it? Do you deconstruct images and try to re-create them? Are your ideas innate like the creatives, or are you techy and generally need a subject to get you going?

Hit up the comments and let us know.