I need a good field bag

I'm bummed because my red faux-croc laptop tote is about to bite the dust in a non-repairable way. It was only a $30 Target special, but it saw me through a lot of assignments.

But now that the Nikon D40 DSLR has entered my life, I'm thinking I need a new carrying device for my equipment. Can anyone recommend a good bag?

It needs to hold a DSLR body, three lenses, an extra flash unit, memory cards, cables, a 15 inch laptop, power cord, tape recorder and I'd really love a cell phone pouch that is easy to access.

That's not too much to ask, right?

Playing with my new camera

I just got a new Nikon D40 DSLR last week. My mom bought it for me for Christmas, but she can never wait to give me things. She also wanted me to have time to learn how to use it --it's pretty complicated--before we go to Colorado for Christmas. I want to be able to take lots of pics of those gorgeous vistas.

Here are some shots I took playing around with the new camera:

This is my chihuahua/terrier mix Roughneck. I used a slow shutter speed so I didn't have to use flash. It caught the sun coming in the window quite nicely. The auto focus feature on the shutter priority setting is really nice.

This is a photo of a steel rose we picked up from an artist at the Renaissance Fair a couple weeks ago. I used the aperture priority setting on this one because I wanted a soft focus. I put it on no-flash auto.



This is our cat Pez with the new toy we gave her. I'm using full auto with continuous shooting because I didn't want to miss a thing and she moves so fast. Now, using flash on the D40 with continuous shooting can be challenging. The flash has to reset each time and it slows the shots way down. You just have to learn to time it right. I might invest in a better flash than the built in one. That will probably be my next purchase because I want to be able to do indirect flash and bounce flash.

This camera has been amazing fun. I'll be posting more pics soon!