Blue Pixel

Sunday, April 2nd, 2006 by Blue Pixel

In addition to working with Blue Pixel, I'm the Technology Editor at Photo District News magazine, and sometimes I find myself doing very odd things in my capacity there as chief product tester.

For example, recently I had to test the waterproofness of a Lowepro camera bag. While I was tempted to march down to the Hudson with this $200 bag and toss it in, I thought that the company might not want back a backpack with barnacles on it.

Instead I crafted a water test facility out of my kitchen’s farmhouse style sink and pressure washer. Okay, this isn’t a purely photographic post (though I do have to say that the bag passed my test) it’s just a musing on the odd things photographers often find themselves doing.

We’ll test the battery life of our cameras by standing out in the cold and taking pictures until the shutter stops clicking, or wrap duct tape around camera gear to help hold it together. We’re an odd bunch, but I like to think that the creativity we exhibit when, say, testing out a camera bag, is connected to the creativity in our photography.

And in case you were wondering, the bag passed my tests.