February 2012

As a travel and nature photographer, I’m often carrying a large bag full of gear. But for many shorter trips, or for photo tours where I’ll only need shorter lenses, I’m always looking for the perfect travel photo bag that can double as my briefcase. It needs room for at least two cameras (I’m willing to check my third in a solid case or bring a rolling camera bag if I can carry a lot of gear on the plane), a few lenses, and at least one of my flashes. However, I also need to stash my laptop and papers in it – and these days even a tablet. So camera-only bags just don’t cut it. And most briefcases aren’t well suited as camera bags.

Nikon’s worst kept secrets, the Nikon D800 DSLR and Nikon D800e DSLR were, dare I say finally, announced yesterday. At 36MP and $3,000, it blows the doors off the raw pixel-per-dollar performance of Nikon’s flagship Nikon D3X – an $8K camera with lower resolution that uses older technology. And Nikon has amped up the video capability by leaps and bounds on the D800 and D800e. But is one of them the right camera for you…