Phil Sheard | Blog

Two versions of the same great song. What an incredible voice.

Since buying my DSLR camera last year I’ve been carrying it around in a normal bag with just a neoprene laptop sleeve to protect it. If you’re like me and you don’t like the styling of the Lowepro camera bags, I can recommend buying a camera insert instead. It’s much cheaper to create your own DIY camera bag and you can choose one that you think looks good rather than being limited to the camera bags that are made for this purpose by Crumpler and Domke.

My recommendation: camera bag insert for Billingham Hadley Small

The insert I went for is the Billingham Hadley Insert Small (W260 x D70 x H185mm) after testing it for size in a Jessops store. The Hadley Small is Billingham’s entry-level camera bag and costs £100 or more for the whole thing. The insert however costs around £40 and comes with a few dividers to customise the insert layout.

Choose the right size camera insert for your bag

This photo with the can of Coke shows that this particular one is relatively small at W260 x D70 x H185mm – there are also other Billingham inserts, like the Original insert (W320 x D70 x 225mm) and the Large insert (W360 x D70 x H255mm). This size is good for me because my 450D is one of the smaller DSLR cameras and I don’t have lots of lenses and other kit right now. Later down the line I will upgrade I’m sure, which is another good reason for doing this the cheaper way.

The two images above show a couple of different ways to fit the camera in. I prefer the second – the grip is easy to reach and you can reach down into the bag without looking to grab the camera out.

This is the finished result, with the insert packed into a standard bag that I’ve had for a couple of years.

You end up with a good looking bag that is now perfect for carrying and protecting a camera.

A final bonus of the removable insert is that it can be transferred between other bags. The final photo above shows that it’s conveniently the right size to fit into my Ortleib cycle panniers so that’s a safe way to take the camera on bike rides as well.

Where to buy a camera insert

Amazon sell the Billingham Hadley Small and mine was delivered within a week.

Thanks for visiting.

Don’t be daff’d, originally uploaded by Phil Sheard.

Such a great weekend in London for spring weather. We walked from Angel through Farringdon, Covent Garden, Piccadilly Circus, Green Park, Buck Palace, St James’ Park, Westminster, the south bank, Holborn and then finished up at Russel Square for the tube.

Photo above shows the daffodils coming through in St James’ Park

Fuel, originally uploaded by Phil Sheard.

Getting a decent coffee machine at home was a great move, if I do say so myself. I’ve been chided a couple of times for cheating and getting a Nespresso machine but no regrets here.

When I was researching different machines, I struggled to find any decent reviews from blogs about these machines. Perhaps Google’s latest update (the ‘Farmer’ update) will keep the content farms and review sites at bay for a while. Anyway, this is a long way of saying I got my camera kit out to do a short video to demo the machine. This was the only glass I could find to show off the crema you get from the machine. Love it.

I realised last week that this blog could use some TLC and a fresh perspective. Like many before me I trotted over to Smashing Magazine to find a free WordPress theme and landed on this one – Modernist.

An unexpected outcome of this change is that I’ve started looking at the content and the whole process of blogging with fresh eyes.

The last theme had become a playground for testing new features or tricks as I tinkered with WordPress. It had moved away from the purpose I had in mind when I first started the blog in 2008 – as a place to formulate my thoughts and share the things I was seeing. I’d become preoccupied with the tech behind blogging, but I’m motivated to focus back on the content instead of the way in which the blog works.

Coincidentally, within 24 hours of updating the theme, I found myself on Matt Mullenweg’s blog and was pleasantly surprised by the simple functionality of the site (behind those bright colours). In addition, the top post just happened to be his response to a New York Times article about the drift away from blogging. Matt’s post is worth a read for a perspective on the relationship between blogging and social networks in early 2011. Spoiler: the man who gave us WordPress disagrees with the NYT.