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Proud to be a child of God, a faithful son (I hope lol) a trying to be hardworking student, a part-time worker, a nerf/milsim enthusiast, a crafting and music lover and an awesome friend. to you :) Hope you have an enjoyable time reading about my life, as much as I have fun living it! |
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I am a university student who loves chocolate! Coffee is my best buddy when it comes to taking on my finals. I have a tendency to want to try and do so many different things at once and as a result, I've found my hobbies to be as such!
Nerfing is one of them, but aside from that, I also love arts and craft. I have my own startup, Thumbforlego at: where I sell my works! 
I love to do all sorts of crafting, so you will see me uploading posts of my leathercrafts, thumbdrives, replica guns, nerf gun modifications and gundam models! I'm fortunate enough to be blessed by really supportive parents and given the chance to explore many, many parts of the world and try out a plethora of activities. This is also how I discovered my love for film photography, videography and piano. 
The film photo above is unedited! My family loves cold countries xD. We managed to catch the northern lights twice! 
I've also gotten the chance to experience many of nature's wonders 
And my most freezing experience to date: riding a husky ski sled into the sunset (It was -38 to -40 degrees celsius and the huskies were pretty fast.) 
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Why 36000feetabove? This is the altitude that commercial planes cruise at and I have always loved the view up in the sky, being amongst the sea of clouds. :) Personally, my favourite favourite food has got to be airplane buns! Does anyone else feel the same way?! With a slice of butter and looking out of the window, I have yet to find an experience that can beat that. 
After tomorrow, before today
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Sunday, January 22, 2017
So today I shall review the Everyday Backpack while reeling in from the insomnia I am currently facing. Well, a backpack with such a title would have large shoes to fill. First off, the Everyday Backpack started off on Kickstarter, and that was where it caught my eye! It is thoughtfully designed by Peak Designs, who pride themselves in creating quality camera accessories. So this would give a comfortable reason to believe that this bag was created primarily for camera gear. However, the modularity of the compartments in the bag and the thoughtfulness of the design of the bag such as the external straps to fasten down a bulky item like a drone, or in my case, a steadicam, as well as the dedicated laptop compartment makes this bag a joy for me to use on a daily basis. I've been using so many bags now and my go to bags are usually bags from Hazard 4, a tactical brand that builds extremely hardy bags. These expensive, good quality bags feature molle webbings at the front and sides (those straps you see sewn onto military bags), that gives me the modularity that I am looking for, thereby adding pouches according to wherever I deem would greatly simplify my commute or photo takings. it was basically my everyday, anything and everything go to bag. Hence, I was satisfied with the Hazard 4 bag. Therefore it was really difficult for the everyday backpack to prove itself that it would be a loving companion for my item storage. So what does the Everyday Backpack have to compete against for attention? The Hazard 4 bag... 1. is extremely hardy (i mistreat my bags), 2. holds a lot A LOT of items while having side straps to compact the bag, 3. has a dedicated laptop sleeve that fits my 15" Macbook, 4. provides endless ways for me to mount what I need on the bag because of the molle system, 5. even has a waterbag compartment, 5.5 straps to tie down the drinking tube that makes it super useful when hiking 6. standard side straps for greater stability when hiking 7. hard case for spectacles/sunglasses/shades/anything fragile (my heart) 8. huge capacity, so much so that I can even fit my sport shoes inside with my gym attire. +socks. 9. yes that is a number lock you see on the right. 10. Added hooks so that i can hang anything extra on the sides.   I have no proper digital/film photos of the Hazard 4 bag as it is stuck to the back of me most of the time. The moment I received the bag, I flew to Norway and had ALL my camera inside the bag, or strapped to my bag. Which in my opinion was really impressive! Everything was so easily organized into the well thought-out pouches that they designed and i was thoroughly impressed! Taking reference from Razer's "By gamers, for gamers" tagline, I would be so so pleased to say that this bag was created for photographers, by photographers. The first thing that impressed me right out of the nice shipping packaging was the build quality of the metal buckle. Really hardy and sturdy, more that what i have expected while watching the online live video that they had with the Kickstarter backers to familiarize ourselves with their creation and to offer any feedback too. To simply matters and prevent subpar product photos of the everyday backpack from my smartphone, here is a video that fills you in on the many features of the bag! I do film photography on a pretty often basis and blow up my wallet over that, however because I do digital photos too and have a 15" macbook to carry around, it can become very cumbersome, especially to find a bag that can suit the bizarre needs of such. There is always this thing that I always need to bring out my Sony A7ii, Pentax camera for coloured film shots and the Ricoh GR1 for B&W street photos. Sometimes at the end of the day, the cameras don't even see the harsh sunlight. I'd like to show you how I categorized all my items in the bag and list out the items that was inside my daily carry. For the record, I am back in Singapore and still using the bag on a normal basis and bought the 20L backpack. What bought me over, was the modularity of the compartments which I often use and the large laptop compartment that comfortably hugs my 15" Macbook. Who doesn't like hugs?! Photos below taken with my Samsung S7 edge at the airport. First off, the right side of the bag.  The left pouches inside are made of a really soft fabric and the mouths of the opening lined with an elastic band which helps tremendously. Also, there is an external layer of fabric covering everything for some added protection! That way, also, when you insert things in from the top of the bag, they would not get caught up with the items there. Which can get messy if cables start getting caught and tangled amongst your things. The top pockets are filled with 1 extra Sony battery, 1 roll of film and a 9v battery for the rode mic. The below compartments are filled with another 3 sony batteries and a pen and marker just in case. As you can already see inside the bag, there is a medium sized tripod separated easily by the foldable modular separators that they gave. On to the right side!  Here, the highest pocket holds my usb c dongles because well idk what was Apple thinking when they came out with the new Macbook and take away the SD card slot and then not provide/sell a dongle for it when it's the lifeline of any photographer. And well isn't the Macbook optimized for media people? The other pocket with the black cable holds the GoPro charging cord and my earpiece for editing videos in public. And lastly a portable WD 2TB hard drive to store the extremely big video and photo raw files churned out by the Sony.  For the main section of the bag, lets start from the top! You can see a yellow bag that holds the Macbook charger, Samsung charger and more usb chargers for the GoPro and portable battery. Still has loads of space for more. Impressive. The middle section holds the portable charger whether for phone or gopro, a GoPro Hero 5 Black, a Lume Cube for lighting and a cold shoe adapter to mount all of them to my Sony if need be. (not a bright idea. pun unintended). On the bottom most section, it holds my Pentax Spotmatic film camera with a Custom SLR air strap attached to it. I must mention that it is a snug squeeze with the strap on. For the portable charger, i am using a XiaoMi one, although I highly recommend an Anker brand as only theirs matches the discharge rate of a GoPro. Meaning, while charging and recording, your GoPro does not lose battery life.  Using the 2016 Macbook Pro and it fits very very comfortably inside the laptop sleeve as shown above. Although sometimes it gets caught on the smaller pocket, as shown in the next photograph. No biggie. As stated by the video, you can fill up the entire bag and slot in the laptop and it will still fit. Whereas some bags i've tried has your laptop latching on to the contents of your bag. 
There is a small pocket for you to keep your valuables and still have easy access to them, without having to worry about misplacing your belongings or having too many things to hold in your hand. Over here, I kept a box of SD cards so that I can swap easily if need be and a pack of poker cards to keep the sociable part of me satisfied.
So therefore, all the items in the bag would include:
1. 15"Macbook Pro
2. Hard case for SD cards
3. A deck of poker cards
4. Medium sized tripod
5. Macbook charger
6. Phone charger
7. USB head charger
8. Travel adaptors for electrical plugs
10. Lume Cube
12. Pentax Spotmatic
13. 3x extra Sony batteries
14. 1 roll of coloured film as backup
15. Pair of marker and pen
16. 9v battery for the Rode mic.
17. 2 usb c dongles
18. Gopro charging cable
19. Glow headphones
20. Western Digital 2TB Hard Disk (Formatted for Mac)
Twenty items! All inside that one bag. and the occasional steadicam strapped for carrying when i am not using it. Is it overkill, yes it is but that's how I've always done it this way. TEAM OVERKILL!!! Jon Olsson quote. Surely, back in Singapore, I am carry much lesser stuff and more suited based on my day-to-day usage but it is still pretty similar. Throw out the chargers and I can nest the Sony A7ii nicely in the top section so as to free up my hands if need be.
On top of the crazy amount of stuff you can put into the bag, it also has a water resistant surface hence you would not see me scurrying for shelter when there is a storm as I would have with the Hazard 4 bag. I have yet to abuse the bag hence I cannot comment much on the durability. However gut feeling tells me the Hazard 4 bag will win the durability seat in parliament.
Modularity wise... I would say that they are pretty on par with one another in a sense that they have different strong/weak points. It's just a balance thing. Like a zero sum game. The Everyday Backpack has things more organized and neatly tucked away as compared to the Hazard 4 but the latter definitely holds more than the 20L variant of the bag. Peak Designs carries a 30L bag but as I worry that I'll look like a tortoise, I stood by the 20L. Which also suited my needs better. I love the modularity of the everyday backpack and how it fits so well with my camera lenses! Even though I am using smaller sized vintage lenses as compared to the big bulky ones they have in the market now, I have no qualms of them slipping around that compartment as everything is very secure. The sides being able to butterfly out all the way also allows me to easily reach for my cameras and lenses when taking photos without me needing to put down the bag. Although I would feel much safer to put the bag down and swap lenses.
Running. Hmmm... I certainly have no plans to run with the Everyday Backpack. Or hike with it. It does not have padded shoulder straps like the Hazard 4 does, but the lack of paddings also means a much sleeker looking backpack comfortable enough for a train ride home after a day. I like the material that they use on the exterior, making it water resistant and has a nice clean look to it. I bought this bag with the vision in mind that I can use it when I am working in future. It looks nice, presentable and just different from the usual backpack, which is what I like.
Indeed the Everyday Backpack does live up to its name as the everyday backpack!
At least for my lifestyle!
It was indeed tough shoes to fill but I am really pleased to have found a bag that is so well suited for my needs. The buckles, the pouches and all, you can tell that a lot of meticulous thinking went into it, which I greatly appreciate.
They do have smaller variants like the tote bag. However that had problems accepting a 15" laptop. I believe that this backpack will work out for other lifestyles too, whether you hit the gym or go hiking with it. Although if I go hiking, I would very much prefer to stick to the Hazard 4 bag.
The Everyday Backpack has since replaced the Hazard 4 bag as my go to bag. However for sports and recreation, I would very much prefer to fall back on the Hazard 4.
For the record, I've been using the Hazard 4 backpack for over 2 years and I am still loving the bag and find it almost impossible to find another bag that can suit its capabilities. The Everyday Backpack just has a different approach to it. It's like comparing a sports car to an SUV. Both have different roles, but they are both really, really. Good products.
If there are any Peak Design employees reading this, I love your packaging so much I kept it and am going to get it made into a HUGE pouch.
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