Ona Bag Review - Ona Prince Street

The ONA Prince Street may be the end of my search for the perfect bag for my Leica. I could fill a closet in my house with discarded camera bags. This is just the perfect size for my Leica gear. Not to big and not to small. To save you a trip to the Ona web site here are the specs. 

• Exterior dimensions: 12.5"L X 10"H X 4.5"D
• Interior dimensions: 12"L X 9"H X 4"D
• Weight: 3.3 lbs

The leather Prince Street comes in Dark Truffle and Antique Cognac. Both are nice looking bags. I chose the Dark Truffle because although I like black camera bags I wanted something just a little different. 

ONA Prince Street - Dark Truffle

Buckle Snapped in Place

Ona bags use buckles instead of Velcro to secure the top flap. This makes for a much quieter bag in use. Opening pockets on a camera bag is something that is repeated many times a day and I personally get tired of hearing Velcro being ripped open. The latches take a little getting used to but seem secure.  

Adjustable Buckle

The cover is secured in place by two brass buckles. They are adjustable so that as the amount of equipment that is being carried changes you can get just the right fit for the cover. 

Top of Strap Pad

Bottom of Strap Pad

The shoulder pad is 8 1/2 x 2 3/8 inches. It slides freely on the strap for best comfort. I would like it to be a little thicker, but it has a nice feel. Some rubber stitching on the underside would help as it has a tendency to slide off of my shoulder. 

Hand Strap

At first use I did not like the hand strap. It was just to stiff. But after a couple of days of use it has really softened. Just the normal use of the strap has broken in the leather that it is now soft to the touch and comfortable. 

Bottom Detail

The workmanship on the bottom of the bag is what you would expect for a bag in this price range. The bottom of the bag looks as nice as the top. It is details like this that should insure that I will be using my Prince Street for a lot of years. 

Side Detail

Nice touch having to their name stamped on the side. 

Back

Pocket Magnet

The back pocket goes the entire length of the bag and is much larger than it appears. I have been carrying my Leica Tabletop Tripod, Moleskine and a Xrite ColorChecker Passport in the back pocket. The pocket is deeper than expected. You can just make out the outline of the magnet that is sewn into the back pocket. This little touch is handy, it keeps everything from sliding out if the bag falls over when placed on the ground. Again, no annoying Velcro. 

Back Pouch

I don't go anywhere without a Moleskine. 

Top Flap

Here is the front flap laying open. At the top of the photo you can see the tabs that fold over to seal the bag and keep dust and rain out. The bag isn't waterproof but this helps protect the equipment. 

Front Pockets

Front Pocket Detail

There are two pockets on the front under the top cover. They are not large but this is a small bag after all. I have been able to put all of my small gear from my previous bag in my Ona. When I want to carry my iPhone in the bag I just lay the filter cases under a lens on the inside. 

Prince Street Inside

I carry a Leica M (240) with lens and three other lenses and I can still hide a battery and other small gear inside this bag. I like the neutral gray padding. The Ona Berlin bag that is very similar to the Prince Street has a red interior. Personally I hate the look of the inside of the Berlin bag. 

iPad Pocket

For such a small bag it is impressive that Ona found room for an iPad inside of the bag. This is the 9.7 inch iPad Pro and it fits perfectly. I carry the Lightning to SD adapter in the front pocket so that I can post to my web site while on location. 

I'm very happy with this bag. It holds all of the gear that I shoot with on a regular basis and looks great. And the more I use this bag the more worn it will look and that is part of the appeal to a leather bag. It is roomy on the inside and the equipment slides out easily. A $400 camera bag is not for everyone, but hey, I'm shooting with a Leica. Sometimes in life you just throw logic out the window and get what your heart wants. 

Film is Not Dead - Retouching

You think your a good retoucher. Take away your Mac. Take away Photoshop. Take away your Wacom. Now this is real retouching.

Looks easy right?

I've shot a lot of film over the years. This image was taken over 30 years ago. Retouching 4x5 negatives was not easy but could be done. Retouching 120 negatives would drive you to drink. If you even thought of working on 35mm you should be locked up. The negative was inserted into a carrier that held it in place and the magnifier was swung into position. When the machine was turned on it would vibrate the film so that you would move the pencil very little and the vibration would do the work. One of the knobs adjusted the vibrating and the other the intensity of the light behind the negative. Think about this image the next time you use the clone tool.

Scrivener for iOS

Here it is, Scrivener for iOS. Literature and Latte has managed to bring their wonderful program to the mobile world. When they opened the beta program to outside testers I immediately signed up and was fortunate to be chosen as a beta tester. Scrivener runs on both the iPhone and the iPad and syncs with the desktop version of Scrivener by way of Dropbox. 

If you don't know what Scrivener is all about it is a program that is designed for long form text documents. It is widely used by novelists, researchers, and script writers. Everyone who collects information and ideas to write is a candidate to use Scrivener. It has many unique and useful features like a cork board to get an overview of a project and it outputs to various formats such as PDF's, scripts, and e-pubs. It is so much more than just a word processor.  

Here are some screenshots to help you get started.  

A new project is created by pressing the "+" in the create project box or with the "+" in the upper right corner. 

To setup syncing control is on the bottom of the opening screen. 

If you choose to use Dropbox your information is entered here. This can be used to backup your file or to sync with the desktop version of Scrivener. Scrivener for the desktop has been updated to work with Dropbox. 

Here is the Binder and the editing environment where project management is performed and you write and edit your text. 

The project settings are changed here. There is lots of customization available, this isn't just a simple text editor. 

The Compile settings dialog. 

Next up is the import dialog. 

The next icon creates a new folder. 

The last icon creates a new document. 

The icon with three lines enables you to compile your document. 

In the lower right corner is the Share dialog. 

Upper right "+" is another create New Document. 

The eyeglass is used for searching for text in the current document. If you wish to search the whole project, pull down on the Binder list to expose a project search bar. 

The Recent Documents menu. 

The italicized "I" opens the inspector. 

Swiping left in the Binder reveals more options. 

When "More" is pressed even more options are available. "Quick Reference" creates a split screen so that another document or image can be referenced while writing. 

Adding comments or footnotes. 

Adding a text link or an image. 

Formatting shortcuts are at the top of the keyboard. By scrolling left or right formatting options are available while typing. 24 options can be shown by breaking them down into 3 groups of 8. 

The formatting bar can be customized for your own individual needs. Just press and hold on the icon you wish to change to bring up the customization menu. 

Tapping the word count brings up this dialog box. Project as well as session word count is shown. 

You can even set a word count for the current session. 

This shows the spilt screen in action with a reference image and the outline in its cork board mode. 

The opening home screen includes a helpful tutorial to get you acquainted with Scrivener. Be aware that work needs to be manually synced to Dropbox. There are numerous locations throughout the program that have sync buttons so remember to save your work frequently. All of the screenshots are of the Golden Master and may change in the final release. Scrivener for the iPhone and the iPad will sell for $19.95 and will be available starting today in the Apple App Store. If you already own Scrivener on Mac or Windows you already know how great a program it is but for everyone else I say come and join the Scrivener universe. 

Scrivener for Blogging

Recently I was asked what is my process for writing my blog posts. I write everything in a program called Scrivener. I have been using it since 2009 after a recommendation by Andy Ihnatko on Macbreak Weekly. I have never liked Microsoft Word or Google Docs. The best thing about Scrivener is that all of the research that goes into a review can be kept in the program so when you are done it is all in one place so that the actual writing is so much easier. This isn't a review so much as some incouragement to give Scrivener a try. 

Scrivener

Research is a big part of writing reviews and Scrivener has an elegant system for handling all of the text, photos and links that can be referenced while writing. There is a special folder conviently titled "reference". While writing the reference folder can be adjusted to have all of the material available in a window next to the main editing window. I collect all of the data that I feel is needed for an article so that when I start writing there is no jumping from one screen to another. 

There is a cork board that is great to see a visual overview of how the article is layed out and it is simple to just rearrange sections by dragging them to a new location. The image on the cork board can be text or images and this makes it easier to experiment and change the flow of an article.  

I write sponsored post that require a specific word count and Scrivener has a palette just for keeping track of the length of the articles that you write. Not only do you get a word count but a word count for a session can be configured. This is really useful for long form writing such as with novels. Set up a daily word count that you wish to achieve and the program will let you know when you have achieved your daily goal.  

The snapshot feature allows saving the document at set intervals and labels them as you work so you can go back in time and see how your work has progressed. This is a very useful feature that I sometimes use because it makes revisions easier. A standard feature of most word processors is the full screen mode and Scrivener has the ability to change to a distraction free environment when the mood arises. Once your work is completed the project can be compiled into many different common formats. Anywhere from plain text to PDFs and book formats from the popular platforms such as Amazon Kindles or iBooks for the iOS products. 

The best news of all is that soon there will be a mobile version of Scrivener. It will run on iPads and iPhones. The feature set is very close to the desktop version and will fully sync all the data. Talk about the best of both worlds. Give Scrivener a try. It is available from the Literature and Latte site and from the Mac store.  

Lexar and Leica

Leica M (240), Lexar SD cards, Ona Prince Street (Dark Truffle), Think Tank Photo SD Pixel Pocket Rocket

As you can tell I'm a big fan of Lexar memory cards. Once I find something that is reliable it's added to my workflow until it lets me down. Lexar cards have been my go to memory cards on both my Leica and Nikons. Just buying whatever is on sale doesn't work for me. The images I create define me and are too important for a Costco mentality. 

Large capacity memory cards may be convient but I have always preferred smaller cards so that if they ever fail, well there are fewer images to loose. 32 GB cards on the Leica M seems to be about the perfect size for me. 

When I teach workshops on street photography I hand out a Lexar card with some images on it so that the students have images that are standardized so when we do the Photoshop or Capture One Pro training everyone has the same images to work on. Yes I go through a lot of Lexar cards.  

G-Technology for Workflow

20 years ago I lost a digital shoot because of a hard drive. Never again. These days I have standardized on G-Technology products and I feel safe. Nope, not a spokesman for them, I am just a satisfied customer.

G-Technology Workflow.

In the upper left is the G-Technology EV Dock. It consists of two 1 terabyte drives that are docked with the computer with a Thunderbolt connection. What makes the drives so versatile is that they also have a USB 3 connector. Most of my shooting is to a tethered Macbook Pro that saves my files to the internal hard drive and the G Drive at the same time. This is achieved with the program Carbon Copy Cloner. When I finish shooting I just eject the drive and plug it into the G Dock. The files are then copied to the big drive that is right below in the photograph that is below. This is a G-Raid Thunderbolt drive. It is formatted as Raid 1 so all of my files are copied to two drives at the same time for maximum safety. The G-Raid is my working drive and the Thunderbolt interface really makes Photoshop fast. I have another Large G-Raid under the desk for backup and two large drives that I rotate for offsite storage of backups.

G Technology G-Raid

No matter what drives you use always have multiple backups. The 3-2-1 method is what works the best and is simple to implement. Have your original media copied to 3 different hard drives. Have 2 different types of media in the workflow and have 1 set of your files that are stored offsite. You never know when disaster will strike.

My backup strategy has gone from floppies to zip drives, then to CD's, then DVD's to finally hard drives. That has been a lot of transitioning from one media to another but it is something that just has to be done to keep my work safe.

Savage Translum Do It Yourself

Over on the Savage Universal blog they have posted my article on a project with their Translum material. I am a Featured Photographer on their site and have a couple of articles there. Go check out the article.

Savage Translum Cone

I'm a featured Photographer

I have been selected as a feature photographer by Savage Universal. They are known as the supplier of background paper for photographers. They also sell a wide range of studio accessories. I will be writing guest posts on studio product and food photography with an emphasis on the products that they sell. My first article was posted recently and I talk about the little gadgets that are helpful when starting food photography. 

Peter Fetterman Gallery

Currently the Peter Fetterman gallery in Santa Monica is the place to go if you want to see some of the finest nature photographs ever taken. They are showing the work of Sebastiao Salgado.  

Sebastiao Salgado

It is unreal how many stunning photographs this incredible artist has taken. His many books are just incredible. I have always favored the work in MIGRATIONS, AFRICA, WORKERS, and GENESIS. I would love to have taken just one of his images. There is also a DVD of his life that is a much watch. He is truly an inspiring person who has lived an amazing life. The prints range mostly from $15,000 to $50,000. If you are anywhere near the gallery I urge you to stop in and view some truly iconic images. 

Robert Mapplethorpe - The Perfect Medium

Visited the Mapplethorpe exhibit at The Getty Center this past weekend.  

Robert Mapplethorpe self portrait

I remember the controversy over his photos back in the 80's but this was the first time that I have see his work up close and I must say that I was really impressed. His mastery of black and white was incredible.  The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is also hosting a Mapplethorpe exhibit that is running for the same dates. Both are running from March 15 - July 31. I plan on attending the LACMA show sometime next month. Also on display are photos from the Sam Wagstaff archive. Wagstaff was Mapplethorpe's benefactor and had an extensive collection of historical photographs. I especially enjoyed seeing prints by Alfred Steiglitz and Edward Weston. His images of the human form have such depth and range the just take your breath away. Flowers was another of his favorite subjects and the are the standard that still life's that photographers to this day compare their work against.