I don't go here very often as it always leads to spending money and coming home with gear that is spur of the moment purchased. Yesterday I had to go, with purpose. Tracy wanted a flash for her Nikon V1 camera and I am bag shopping for our upcoming trip to Hawaii. Bag shopping for camera gear is about the most maddening experience I have ever had. Too big, too small, too expensive, cheaply made, won't do this, won't carry that, this pocket is wrong. It goes on and on and on and on. I hate it. I settled on a LowePro Pro Roller x200. 2 bodies, a 50 1.8, 150/500, 70/200, 24/70, 14/24 and 2 SB units/triggers and the other "stuff".
Helping me at Dodd, was this great Nikon lady, Deb. She's great and has what I call an old soul- just easy to talk to and radiates a passion for Nikon gear. She assisted me in the search and was conscious of cost versus need by desired capacity squared to the ability to do what I need it to do. She's awesome…

Fast forward a couple hundred bucks on a Friday night and me brining Tracy's flash home and realizing it's white and her camera is black led for another trip downtown.

I walked into their Professional area at 9 sharp with my coffee cup in one hand and camera bag in the other and ended up talking shop with a bunch of their staff. New camera features and lighting for over an hour. Guide numbers and specs of favorite cameras, gadgets and video, speculating on the newest stuff due out in 2014. It may be boring to some but this morning spent among plastic and metal, light stands and gear galore was like being a kid in a candy store. Deb was kind enough to second shoot for my first SPS saturday of 2014. Yeah, while I like all this new shiny sexy gear, I'll gladly keep shooting what I got. I have not even scratched the surface of learning the nuances of what I already own.



SPS Saturday- January 2014