Printing and packing
Another day down, another problem solved.The biggest issue I was having with my camera gear is I don't want to bring along my camera backpack since I don't need all my gear. I don't want to bring my camera bag sling thingy since it's not a balanced load.Both of those solutions have their place. Neither of them have the right solution for this trip.I was thinking of making a foam camera pouch of sorts that I can sit the camera (Canon 5D mk II) into while it's sitting in the tank bag to protect it from any jostling and abrasion. I could do that but it would take a lot of time I don't feel like spending at the moment.The solution came when I was shopping for some large-format paper from Adorama.Let's take a step back. Last week I picked up some sampler packs of paper from a couple of different companies: Moab, Ilford and Hahnemühle. I've printed up some stuff on the Hahnemühle (their photo rag), but it's an expensive paper in general. Nice, but expensive. Ilford is a throw-back to my old B&W printing days; most of the prints I've ever made were on Ilford paper (MGIV RC and MGIV Fibre mainly). The Moab was attractive to me from the reviews I was seeing along with the price.The main problem I had was that they didn't have profiles for my printer that didn't use the god-awful "Art" paper settings. The Canon Pixma Pro9500 mk II has these annoying settings that force you to leave a 35mm margin on your output. WTF? Well, turns out they're doing profiles and they hooked me up! (They asked me not to send out the URL to their new site, so I won't) The profiles they have are great!Now if I could only tell you where to find 'em. ;-)Back to the original point now. I was buying a 50-sheet pack of the Kayenta 13x19 paper from Adorama and decided to search for camera cases. I found the LensCoat BodyBag that should do exactly what I want! Only $27.99 from Adorama -- with free shipping to boot! :-)It's a neoprene camera-case that holds a camera with a lens attached. It should provide enough padding to keep things safe and prevent stuff from scratching the hell out of my poor camera. This way I can keep the camera in my tank bag and be ready to shoot with only a moment's notice.End result, I have some great paper from a US company (with the great as-of-yet-unpublished profile) and my camera issue has been solved!