Here is what I did.

• Camera in full manual
• A relatively small aperture (F5.5 to F10). So that everything is in focus and also to compensate for the long shutter times.
• A long shutter. I tried from 5 seconds, all the way up to 1 minute and 20 seconds and chose the ones that looked best.
• No tripod. Hung the camera from a peg for a couple of shots and also kept in on a ledge for others.
• Of course, the IR Filter, that blocks everything below 720nm
• A nice bright day with lots of trees around, and some sky
• A magical function in The GIMP called Auto Equalize to get the trademark IR “Ghosting” effect.

While these are encouraging to me as a first try, I must get some landscapes to really try this out. Is it possible to get HDR IR photographs? Maybe I will try that too.

After a lot of browsing the internet, reading reviews on blogs and watching videos on YouTube, I shortlisted my choices down to the Lowepro Fastpack 350 and the Kata DR-467i and finally bought the Kata as made obvious by this post’s title.

Both these backpacks were perfect for my gear. I settled on the Kata since I felt that it looked better and also a couple of additional features that highlighted their attention to detail. Also, the fact that Kata is an Israeli company that makes bags for the Israeli Army, inspires a lot of confidence in their product.

A couple of the things that helped me make up my mind were that with the Kata, I could also carry a good sized tripod strapped to the side of the bag. Also, the Kata came with an all weather cover that gave the whole bag and the gear inside extra protection in bad weather. Other small things that showed their attention to detail were the rubber cups to prevent zipper noise, the reflective thread in the zipper ends for visibility and the ability to easily strap the backpack to any strolley for wheeling around.

The bag easily holds 1 or 2 camera bodies in top grip position, 2 to 3 lenses and additional things like a flash or lens hoods. The bag can also hold a good sized laptop in the dedicated laptop compartment. I easily carry my 15.6” Lenovo widescreen laptop.

Here is a photo tour of the backpack.