I have ordered some stuff from e-bay. Little things that should make life easier, or simply for fun and experimentation.

First and foremost, I have ordered a camera backpack that should be able to hold the major equipment when moving about. Normally I just put the 1D Mark II and Bigma in the car and drive off to wherever I need to go, but that doesn’t work when going overseas. In particular, I am thinking about my upcoming trip to the Duxford airshow. I need something I can hand-carry on board an aircraft without being forced to check my expensive camera equipment in. For my Duxford trip, I plan to bring the EOS 350D with a 24-70 mm Lens for aircraft close-ups and general tourist photos, while I plan to use the 1D Mark II + Bigma for the in-flight and flight-line pictures. I am not going to use this bag much, so I ordered the cheapest one I could find.

Secondly, as readers of this blog knows, I have had problems getting enough light with the Mark II + Bigma combination. The Mark II is using the older generation CCD sensor, and anything above ISO400 sucks. Unless the sun is out, the pictures tend to be way shaky. So… I have bought a Nissin flash. This is a decent flash with zoom and E-TTL II support. It also comes with a built-in bounce-card and difuser. The flash will also come in handy at places like the RAF museum, where lighting is extremely poor. I also hope to be able to get some vibrant colour photos on cloudy days – something I have never managed to get so far.

Thirdly, I have bought some cheap extension tubes off e-bay plus two reflector screens. Primarily for pictures of flowers. The 24-70mm lens works OK, but I just don’t get as close as I would have liked to, and my pictures require cropping in post. The extension tubes are cheap and nasty, but they should get the job done, despite a cheap build quality. Those I ordered are WITH contacts so that the lens and the camera DO communicate. Autofocus should work then.

The reflectors that I bought come in 5 colours (white, black, gray, silver and gold) and I plan to use them outdoors to reflect sunlight. However, the black one should also work great as background for flower pictures. The reflectors are tiny (50 cm diameter) and can be folded up to fit in a pocket. Great!

For aircraft cockpit photos, I have ordered a Hoya circular polarizing filter. Since cockpits are often locked shut, I hope the CPL filter can get rid of the reflections in the cockpit glass that ALWAYS occur.

Lastly, I have ordered some wireless remote flash triggers, a lightcube and two mini-spots. These are mostly for fun and experimentation. Let’s see how they works out.