Juskuz Photography

I just wanted to share some thoughts on what is supposedly one of the most versatile and easiest to use trunk mounted bike racks on the market today… Yakima’s QuickBack 3.

I’m going to cut straight to the point. If you own a 2001 4dr Jetta do not purchase this rack. It does not fit on this vehicle very well, and the design places unnecessary stress on the most necessary attachment points. I would even go so far as to say, if you own a small to midsize sedan do not purchase this rack as I feel you would have similar problems. I think this rack would work swimmingly on a hatchback, minivan, or a full-sized sedan (large trunk). From there it’s just a matter of whether or not your bike will fit… mine did not. I have a 2010 Santa Cruz Blur LT and could find a way to secure it to the rack. Now I could purchase Yakima’s tube top accessory, but then I believe that my bike would hang so low as possibly scrape on the ground… no thanks!

I don’t want rag on this rack too much. It’s a trunk mounted rack… you really shouldn’t expect much in the first place. But I do have a few complaints that would probably make me return the rack even if it did fit my vehicle. First, the spacing between the cradles on the bars is not adjustable. This is very limiting and doesn’t allow for any tweaking… Design Fail #1. Second, the excess strap retainers are made of hard plastic and it is quite difficult to cram the folded excess strap into the clip. Also, the hard plastic has the potential to be quite loud while banging against the car and could very well damage the finish. A velcro retaining strap would have been much easier to use, just as if not more secure, quite, and less likely to damage the finish… Design Fail #2. Lastly, the point where the top strap attached to the rack is vertically oriented while the strap, where attached to the car, is horizontally oriented. This necessitates a slight twist in the strap. When the rack is attached to a hatchback as in all of Yakima’s product shots, it seems just fine. However, on my Jetta I had to remove the strap retainers and completely tighten down the strap to make it even close to being short enough to appear secure. In this scenario the strap attaches to the car just on the opposite side of the top pad putting a very severe twist in the strap right as it enters the buckle. In my opinion this is not very secure, and puts unnecessary stress on the straps that are supporting the majority of the weight. Now, just north of the support arms on either side of the big red knob there is plenty of room to attach the buckles in a fashion that wouldn’t necessitate a twist and would provide additional room for tightening which would increase the number of vehicles that this specific rack could fit… Design Fail #3.

So, in thinking about and planning some of the night shots of the jumps at Mont Ripley one of the biggest challenges I was going to have to overcome was triggering all of the lights. I am working on this project with my friend Jeff and between us I think we had 8 or 9 strobes, 2 Pocket Wizards, and a handful of ebay triggers. Initially I was thinking that we could use the Pocket Wizards to fire the ebay transmitter which would be placed in close proximity to the the lights. This would probably work just fine, but even on the best of days I could only expect about an 80% fire rate with my old set. So, since the snow has kind of sucked and we haven’t been shooting all that much, I decided to look into some alternative ways of triggering the strobes which would hopefully be more reliable.

Enter Add-a-Tap and Zip Cord!

If you haven’t heard of either of these products, and are into lighting, you are going to be glad you stumbled upon this post. Zip Cord is just your basic 18 gauge 2 wire lamp cord. Add-a-Taps are these little clip on gadgets that let you add a female household (HH) plug inline. These components are commonly used in gym’s and arenas to fire dedicated strobe setups. This is a cheap and very effective way of triggering multiple lights. Add-a-Taps are about $0.71/each and a 250′ spool of Zip Cord goes for just under $30 at Light Trader.

Hold on… we aren’t finished yet. You still need a way to connect your strobes and trigger – in this case a pocket wizard – to the Add-a-taps. Fortunately there is a company called FlashZebra.com that sells a variety of cords at very reasonable prices. For my purposes I picked up 1 HH –> MiniPhone, and 3 HH –> PC cords. The HH–>MiniPhone will be used to connect my pocket wizard to the system, and the HH–>PC cords will be used to connect my strobes.

So, for relatively little money, you can pickup  equipment that will allow you to expand your flash triggering abilities without going into debt. Even if you wanted to fire 15 strobes, it would cost you less than $125. Compare that to 16 Pocket Wizards at ~$2700 and you can see why this isn’t a bad way to go.

Anyway, if you found this interesting of useful please let me know. If you found it boring and useless… please let me know. I don’t want to waste my time or yours, so your feedback is greatly appreciated.

Below you can see how the system goes together. What I like about this system is how reliable it should be. All of the strobes are hardwired to the receiver, and I have the freedom to place the receiver in a position that minimizes the risks of misfires.

Here is an up-close shot of the add-a-tap/zip cord/HH plug assembly.

I first saw the FourSquare on David Tejada’s Blog. At first I thought it was pretty cool, and then I started adding things up in my head… $250 for the FourSquare, $3-400 x 4 to purchase four SB 900′s to maximize the lighting potential. Hmmm… $1800 for a softbox that only has about 240-300 watt seconds of power. For ~ $2000 I can get a Ranger and 1100 watt seconds. Is this really a good idea?

Eventually, I decided it was. Personally, I do not use Nikon’s high-speed sync all that often. To me it is too difficult to guess how much power you are going to get, and fiddling around with the sensor position to make sure I the flashes can see the commander is too much of a pain. I decided to go the cheap route and I picked up 3 more SB 26′s at ~$90 each. This gave me 4 sb 26′s to use in the FourSquare, and my sb 800 to use on camera as fill, or somewhere off-camera.

I decided this was a good idea because the whole system is tiny and super versatile. I can easily throw my speedlights, FourSquare, light stand, and basic camera kit in my back pack and jump on my bike or skis and cover a good amount of distance. With five speed lights I have a lot of options. In the test shot above I have 2 sb26′s in the FourSquare, 2 sb26′s as rim lights, and my sb800 providing fill. If I would have spent my $2000 on a Ranger, I would have 2 less lights… not cool. When shooting in bright sunlight don’t forget about the sun. If you use the sun as your back/rim/hair light and the FourSquare as your key, I still have the sb800 for fill. If you move the key in really close and take the diffusion panel off you can really shoot in a wide range of conditions.

Now, there are those times when you really need a lot of light, when you can’t move the key in really close, yet you still need to have some control over the ambient. This is where things get a little tricky and a more powerful system would definitely be nice. However, all is not lost. I have a D70s from a few years ago that I keep around for situations like this. With the d70s I can sync up to 1/1200 of a second with my pocket wizards, and all the way up to 1/8000 of a second with a modified sc-28. The only thing you have to watch out for is the flash duration. At 1/8000 your shutter speed is much shorter than the duration of a full power flash pulse and you are loosing light. At 1/1000 of a second you can take full advantage of all the light that a speedlight throws out. So, if you throw 4 speedlights into the FourSquare and turn the shutter up to 1/1000 (2 stop advantage over typical flash sync of 1/250) you are right up there with a D3/Ranger system. My only real issue is that I only have 6 megapixels. If only they made a 12mp camera capable of this trick… one day.

In the end, I think this is one really cool piece of lighting kit that a lot of people would find very useful once you got out and used it.

Something to think about.

Here you can see the FourSquare in its storage sack compared to Nikon’s 70-200 f2.8

Here you can see all of the components that make up a FourSquare softbox. I do wish they made grids that were compatible and packable. Also, it would have been nice if the pole sections were shock corded like tent poles. This would make setup much quicker and help hold the sections together. Mine do not fit all that tightly and they have a tendency to fall apart when assembling. Once put together it is very sturdy.

The part that makes all the magic happen

The inside of an assembled FourSquare softbox. The outer fabric has proven to be very durable. I’ve hiked with it assembled through the woods and it scraped along a couple of branches that I didn’t see. The FourSquare shrugged them off like nothing. I have a feeling I will have this piece of kit for a long while.

Here you can see how the back of the FourSquare opens to give you access to your speedlights. One of the other advantages to this open design is that in high winds you can open it up and remove the diffusion panel to make the system much more manageable.

They crammed a ton of stuff into this little block of aluminum and it’s actually pretty easy to use. Sometimes it can be difficult to get to some of the set screws once it’s all assembled, but considering everything that’s going on back here… it’s not bad.

Here are some more sample images taken with the FourSquare.

Here is an image that takes advantage of the FourSquare softbox as a background. I love shooting portraits against a white background, and now I have one that is super portable and allows me to grab a nice headshot quickly and simply in a way that is easily worked into the typical setup process.

Well… that’s about it. Please feel free to share your own experiences with the FourSquare and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask.

Later.

Let me preface this post with a quick disclaimer…

Any equipment reviewed on this site was purchased by me or given to me as a gift from a friend or relative. I am not sponsored by anyone, nor do I get any kind of compensation for providing a positive review. As a matter of fact I am going to gloss over the good points and focus on the bad ones. With that out of the way, lets do this.

Ok, so here you will find my take on the Dakine Sequence Photo Backpack. I purchased this pack when I found my old Lowepro Vertex 100 getting a little small to carry all of my stuff. I really liked the fact that this pack doesn’t look like a photo bag. Now, I’ve heard other people say this about some of the Lowepro or Tamrac bags and sometimes I wonder what they are on. Those bags are the epitome of a camera bag. I feel quite comfortable saying that this pack just might make your high school sophomore jealous.

So, what does it do well? It holds a lot of equipment. It’s comfortable. There are a lot of organizational options. I also like how the pack opens from the back panel. To me this is great because when I take the pack off I don’t have to set the straps down in the mud, or the snow. Also, when the rain cover is on you still have easy access to the main compartment. Personally, I think all photo pack should open this way. If you are a skier or boarder, this pack will easily carry your board or skies, shovel, probe and even you ice axe. Also, the top set of compression straps have this nifty little keeper that holds them in place when you disconnect them to get into the front pocket. It’s little things like this that make this pack really enjoyable to use.

Alright, now what doesn’t this pack do very well? As an outdoorsy kind of person, I am usually quite active when using this pack, and any skier or snowboarder using this is also going to work up a sweat. Now, you can fit a water bottle in one of the side pockets, but it would be nice if there was the option to used a hydration system. Also, the tripod carrying system is for shit. It consists of two loops with buckles that are supposed to wrap around your tripod and hold it in place. The problem is that these two loops are only attached to the pack at a single point so the tripod is not held in place at all. If you do manage to get the straps secure, you tripod will still flop all over the place making anything but a brisk walk dangerous. On top of that the buckles on the straps are poorly positioned. When trying to secure my bogen 3021 tripod the buckle falls right over the apex of one of the legs. This positions the buckle in a way that causes it to constantly loosen. Combine this with all the wagging around and you have a system that makes me wonder if they ever tried it out before putting it into production. The only other thing I think I should mention is the front pocket. The zippers only go about halfway down the front of the pack making it difficult to get into. It might not sound like that much of a problem, however it has caused me to store only the things that I don’t use very often. If Dakine would extend the zipper to the bottom of the pack they would fix this problem and then all they would have to do is develop a different tripod carry system.

Overall, the pack seems to be built very solidly, it’s comfortable, versatile, holds a ton of gear, protects said gear, looks good on the slopes and won’t cost you an arm and a leg.

Here you can see the rain cover that folds out from a small zippered compartment on the bottom of the pack. It is easy to put on and always ready to go.

Here you can see the top pocket. It does a good job of holding your goggles, wallet, notebook, pocket wizards… anything that you might need quick access to. It doesn’t have much structure, but it is convenient and much larger than it initially looks.

Here you can see the front pocket on the pack. To tell you the truth, I find this storage area pretty useless. The front flap only zips about halfway down to the base of the pack. This makes access to the internal areas more difficult than necessary. Also, for whatever reason, the way the zippers are positioned for the inside pockets make them difficult to get in and out of. I do find that this area is good for my Honl lighting accessories and random odds and ends. This is where I keep things that I don’t need to use very often. I think if they extended the outside zipper, and changed the zipper configuration on the inside pockets things would be much easier to use.

This is how the pack looks when it is open. I’ve seen other images of this pack with small zippered storage pockets on the back-panel that folds down. Also, the catalog that I ordered this pack out of showed the same organizational feature. I have to say I was pretty bummed when my pack showed up lacking this feature. Maybe I just got an old version of this pack… but I still feel cheated. Anway, the internal area holds quite a bit of stuff and is perfect size for just about all my needs. Here’s what I can fit:

- D300 w/grip with 24-70 f2.8 (hood attached)
- 70-200 f2.8
- 12-24 f4
- 10.5 f2.8
- 50 f1.8
- 35 f2
- SB 800 in pouch
- SB 26
- Rocket Blower
- Lens cloths
- 2 extra en-el3 batteries
- extra battery for grip
- SC-28 off-camera cord
- Think Tank memory card wallet
- extra AA batteries
- Aquatech rain cover (when needed)

All of this fits inside the pack. You still have the two large side pouches, top pocket, and front storage areas. I can’t imagine too many people needing much more than this. Combined with the compression straps on the side, I often use the side pockets to carry light stands, tripod/monopod, or my FourSquare softbox.

Here you can see how the modular system breaks down. I think it’s great that this pack does double duty as a standard pack, or skiing/boarding pack. I can’t say that I’ve used the camera pouch on its own yet. However, I can imagine it being pretty useful on it’s own.

UPDATE: Here’s an advantage to the Cokin P-system that you might not be aware of… When the adapter ring is on Nikon’s 70-200 2.8 it doesn’t stick out very far and is almost impossible to use. You can unscrew the filter a bit and the filter holder will go on. Now what this means is that I can leave the adapter ring on and my hood will fit over it. Now you can’t use the hood and the filters at the same time, but when not using the filters I don’t have to take the adapter ring off… cool… yes it is.

Alright… now initially I was going to write a big bitchy post about how much this system sucks… but I don’t think that will be as productive as it could be.

What I am going to do is complain about all the other reviews out there. Before purchasing this setup I did some research and a lot of people were saying that the P-series holder sucked. However, they were stating why it sucked and in the meantime it appeared like they continued to use the system. I don’t see how writing a review of something and just saying it sucks helps anyone. Maybe it will make you feel better, but it’s not productive.

Now, in the face of all the poor reviews I went ahead and purchased the Cokin P-series filter holder, 77mm adapter ring, and the P121S (soft, 3 stop graduated ND). Now, I don’t expect too much from the filter. It was cheap and if I like what I see than I will invest in something made out of glass from one of those other companies.

It’s the filter holder system that’s putting a twist in my knickers. The actual holder itself is pretty decent. It didn’t cost much, it seems pretty durable, and it holds the filters securely. Not too much to complain about here except some vignetting… but I expected that… so it’s not really a fault.

The thing that sucks about this system, and I’m sure many of the other reviewers just forgot to specify this, is the adapter ring. This ring threads into your lens and creates the flange that the filter holder mounts onto. The 77mm size doesn’t consist of very much metal and the one I received was all bunged to hell and required quite a bit of “adjusting” to get it even close to being flat/true so that I could screw it onto my lenses without feeling like I was going to bung up the threads.

Now, if you are using a lens with a smaller diameter… I think you will be just fine. These adapter rings will have significantly more material which should help keep them true throughout the manufacturing/shipping process. As for using the P-series filters on lenses with a 77mm diameter… probably shouldn’t do it. You should most definitely be using the “Z-Pro” series which is 100mm and whose adapter ring should be less prone to getting bunged up. Yeah… it is more expensive, but you just paid almost $2000 for that 24-70 f2.8… remember, you get what you pay for.

So, I guess I don’t really have a beef with the Cokin filter system. I should have bought the Z-pro system, but I didn’t. I’ll play around with this and if I like it I will upgrade.

I hope this is helpful. If not let me know… I hate wasting my time reading useless info. Don’t let me waste yours.

Later.