Billingham Hadley Small Review

Hello all! I want to do a quick review on my new camera bag that I just recently purchased. It's the Billingham Hadley Small!

Why Billingham Hadley Small

I've been wanting to replace my Timbuk2 Classic Messenger bag for quite some time because it is not a dedicated camera bag and it does not provide bump protection although it is quite weather proof. I've looked for so many camera bags but most of them looks too plastic-y velcro-y with lots of pockets, slips and zippers which made the bag looked very complicated. I narrowed down my choice to ONA Bowery and Billingham Hadley Small.

I was about to pull the trigger and jump into ONA Bowery because it is smaller, simpler and overall more attractive to my taste. It is also quite cheaper too! Unfortunately it is not available easily at where I live and I have to import it or at least ask someone who's on a trip to somewhere that sells that particular bag. So I contemplated for a long time and decided to get the Billingham instead.

I wasn't disappointed at all! In fact, I am glad that I purchased the Billingham instead of the ONA! This bag screams quality all over the place. The size of the bag is perfect, the canvas-like material is waterproof, it feels comfortable when being slung around my body, and the leather accent as well as the overall styling of the bag is very sweet. It's not cheap though at almost US$300.00. Anyway, let's dive in deep into the details of the bag!

From the Outside

The bag doesn't look like a camera bag. The all black color in particular looks very nice and very stealthy with only the brass buckle loops and the little brass buckle holders being the non black colored parts of the bag. The size of the bag is small but not too small, big but not too big; it's the perfect size for city walkaround, travelling, casual walking with just carrying little gears. It measures 27cm horizontally at the top of the bag and 20cm vertically at the side of the bag.

From the side of the bag, it is not the slimmest bag in the world but it is still pretty compact considering the capacity of the bag. It is quite flexible too so if you tighten the buckle a little bit, it will compress the depth even more so that it becomes slightly slimmer. It measures approximately 10cm at the bottom of the bag and 12cm at the thickest point of the bag when I fully loaded it with my gears.

The flap is quite big and it's quite tight so that it seals the bag properly. The flap opening mechanism is very stealthy with no velcro involved; you open the bag by pulling the leather buckle away from the brass holders. When you first have the bag, that opening method is a bit fiddly but after a while you'll become quicker and it'll feel much better than pulling zipper or velcro.

From the Inside

There is one main compartment with removable padded insert for storing your camera as well as lenses, and there are two pockets on the front of the bag for storing small things that you usually carry with you such as filters, memory cards, straps, lens cleaning cloth, or even a pancake sized lens.

Because of the way the insert fits into the bag, it will make you have two slips that you can utilize to store more items in the bag. You can store a small tablet like a 7 inch Nexus or Apple iPad Mini behind the insert at the rear part of the bag. And you can store unused items that you won't use regularly such as rear cap or body cap in front of the insert at the front part of the bag.

As you can see from the picture above, the width of the Billingham Hadley Small is long enough for me to store two small camera bodies side by side especially cameras like Panasonic GX7, Sony Alpha A6000, Sony NEX series, Canon EOS M, Olympus PEN E-P5 or the OM-D E-M10, or Leica rangefinders with the lenses attached on each bodies. 

As you can see in the picture above, I have two bodies with lenses attached and three extra lenses; all of them fits into the bag nicely with extra room for a mobile phone, wallet, powerbank, earphone, paper documents, Android tablet, batteries, filters, and more. You can even fit a small DSLR camera but you might not be able to put as many extra lenses on the bag and it will not become slim anymore unless you uncouple the lens from the body. 

It comes with two tall dividers and two small dividers, enough to customize your insert into a comfy home for your lenses and camera bodies. With the smaller dividers, you can organize them vertically so you can have protection between lenses should you stack the lenses vertically.

That's all for my short review now. I will add more information here after a few weeks and have some real world usage report. Cheers and God bless :)

Why Micro Four Thirds?!?!?

Why are you switching to Micro Four Thirds?? 

"Are you out of your mind?? That camera is so small, people won't take you seriously!! Don't you know that the sensor is smaller than APS-C?? I want you to take a picture of me with the big Canon instead, put that small camera down and start being serious!! Don't you know your small sensor has more noise compared to my Nikon even in low ISO?? You're gonna be left behind after the new 7D Mark II and D810 get released!!"

Those are what photography people said to us mirrorless shooters, especially Micro Four Thirds (MFT) shooters like me.

March 2013, everyone praise and worship Canon and Nikon as the legends of DSLR photography with cameras like 5D Mark II, D800, 7D or D7100. I was in a need to buy a camera that time and I didn't even understand a thing about photography; all I need that time is just a "nice, sturdy, semi-pro camera". Naturally, I want a camera with large megapixels and excellent image quality but without breaking the bank. I asked experienced photographers and they always suggest either a Canon or a Nikon DSLR. I have no clue at all why but those people are kind of respected in the world of photography so I naturally bought a Canon DSLR.

650D, EOS M, Tamron 18-270, Tokina 12-24, 22mm pancake and 35mm f2.0

When I held my 650D, I felt like I am a "real" photographer with a gigantic camera that makes loud shutter sound! Everyone then respected me as a photographer when I carry that camera and I gained the confidence of being a semi-pro. Good so far! I then started buying lenses, learned to shoot RAW, learned this and that, doing this and that, to the point where I think I am comfortable with my photography skill. From that day, I kept saying to myself: "One day I'm gonna upgrade to 5D Mark III and people will respect me even more!"

Fast forward few months ago, I got very frustrated carrying my cameras and lenses with me on trips. Bringing a single 650D with two lenses added so much weight to my carry on luggage. Not only that, I started noticing the pictures from the Canons, while they are sharp and contrasty, I noticed that the dynamic range is very low; I kept getting blown sky on landscape pictures! I tried underexposing the camera, I even tried turning on the Highlight Priority on both Canons, they worked sometimes but still the rate of blown highlight didn't get reduced significantly. Furthermore, I also felt that the controls on both cameras are somewhat being deliberately "handicapped"; I discovered a third party firmware called MagicLantern that can make my cameras turn into a high bitrate videography machines with added photography functions such as electronic shutter, time lapse shooting, zebra, focus peaking, etc; all the features that are only available in a 5D Mark III.

If it is possible, why didn't Canon include it in the camera on the first place!?!? Are they trying to push me to buy their higher end stuff by making the functionally capable low end camera into a less capable camera than what it really is?!? I simply said "F*ck you, Canon!", gave up my dream of owning a 5D Mark III and then proceed by selling all of my Canon and Tamron for Canon gear except the 650D(and I still have it until today as a memento) and buy a full MFT kit.

Onto the World of Micro Four Thirds

Well, MFT isn't a perfect camera system, just like Canon; but at least it's the one that suits me best right now. I jumped to MFT because:

1. The controls on the system is so much better than Canon or Nikon low end APS-C for the same price range; an Olympus E-PL7 priced around $499.00 has a dedicated control dial that you can use to adjust aperture or shutter; an EOS M of the same price during its launch doesn't have a dedicated control wheel, it simply uses a rotating dial pad that's being shared to navigate the menu.

2. The dynamic range is at least better than the Canon APS-C system (Nikon still enjoy better if not the same dynamic range due to the Sony sensors in Nikon bodies). This is a very important thing for me since I don't want my shots to have dull blown skies.

3. The weight of carrying an entire system is so much less on MFT when compared to carrying my Canon system with the same amount of lenses. This is also very important since I travel a lot.

4. The MFT bodies are very inconspicuous; they are the most ideal street photography tool. I can just put a prime on my Olympus and start shooting without people looking at me like I'm a scary pervert or something. When I did that with my Canon, everyone notices me and they don't act naturally while I'm trying to frame someone on my street photo.

5. Super advanced performance on MFT bodies as well as lenses. My GX7 focuses in less than a tenth of a second in good light condition with its kit lens; my E-PL6 with its kit lens focuses at least two tenth of a second in good light. My 650D with its 18-55 focuses slower than the Olympus even in good light although not by much; don't even mention the EOS M, it focuses almost a full second in good light even after firmware update with native lens. But my $499 E-PL6 which is $200 cheaper than my 650D can shoot 8fps, while my 650D can only do 4 to 5fps at the most. All of my MFT cameras has focus peaking as well, which I don't have on my 650D and EOS M without MagicLantern hack but is available only on 5D Mark III.

My GX7 with Olympus FL600R flash

6. Better connectivity to my devices. On my GX7, I can wirelessly transfer files to my Android phone easily as well as controling the camera settings from my Android phone. Even on high end Canon or Nikon bodies with Wi-fi, all you can do is just transfer pictures. It opened up so many possibilities of picture taking and sharing process.

I can go on and go on about why MFT is better than Canon or Nikon APS-C. But if there are some things where Canon APS-C does better than my MFT system is in the tracking auto focus and slightly lower noise in high ISO. Nevertheless, MFT isn't performing better when compared to Sony Alpha series and Fuji X series but thankfully MFT has more collection of lenses when compared to those system. I love prime lenses and MFT prime lens selection is the best for mirrorless camera!! The only lens lacking for MFT is only long telephoto with wider aperture such as 35mm equivalent of 400mm f2.8 or 600mm f/4.

On the other hand, the smaller sensor on MFT naturally gives more noise even in low ISO ratings but it is still acceptable to me and it's easy to remove during post processing up to ISO 3200. It also creates more depth of field which makes it difficult for me to get blurred background ("Bokeh"), but with the abundant choice of different prime lenses, I can just switch lens and blur the background nicely. Even on my Canon with 17-50 f2.8 I always shoot above f5.6 because 2.8 on that lens doesn't blur the background much and I ended up using 50mm f1.8 for some crazy background blur picture which I do only sometimes.

So yes MFT is a system with a compromise, but those compromises are on the right places and thus it suits me better than Canon APS-C. The system is also not being handicapped, the bodies are as capable as they can be, rather than having some of the potential features removed to push you to buy the high end stuffs which I think is a very bad way of doing business.

So there you have it, my full reason on why I dumped my APS-C Canon and jump into the MFT. I hope you enjoy this post. Please take my words with consideration, I simply wrote this post based on my subjective experience hence your experience might differ and APS-C Canon or Nikon might still going to be an option for you. Cheers and God bless.

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