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It seems that the more one becomes involved with photography, the more stuff one needs to tote around. While expanding one's wardrobe to include more apparel with cargo pockets may provide a short-term solution to gadget growth, eventually the merits of a camera bag will be impossible to ignore.

Nevertheless, the prospect of lugging a large photo poke around may not fill you with honeyed emotions. If that's the case, then the Lowepro Nova 170 AW camera bag will appeal to you.

The sack has a trim set of exterior dimensions--9.5 x 7.1 x 9.6 inches--yet is roomy enough for a compact or full-sized digital SLR and an extra lens. Another combination that I found the 170 accommodating comfortably was a full-sized DSLR and MiniDV camcorder.

In addition to its roomy interior, this Lowepro model offers an assortment of pockets for stashing gear.

On the top flap, there's a zippered pocket. Inside the flap, there's another zippered pocket and three smaller ones with hook and snap closures for memory cards.

The main compartment, which has a removable divider, can be zippered shut for security or the flap secured with a quick-release buckle for fast access to the bag's contents.

On each side of the bag are stretch pockets suitable for bulky items or a water bottle or two.

A padded pocket, also zippered, with two mesh pouches on a third pocket can be found at the front of the sack, and at the back, a zippered pocket handy for storing a camera handbook. That back cavity has dual loops which can be used for securing a small tripod or for threading a belt for wearing the 170 as a waist pack.

The interior of the bag is made of 200D polyester and the exterior of 840D nylon and 600D polyester.

For lensslingers who want the advantages of a camera bag without the bulk, this Nova model, which comes in classic black, Bordeaux Red, Chestnut Brown and Ultramarine Blue, can provide both-- and do it with style.

Earlier this year, HP introduced a product called SimpleSave Photo. The idea behind the offering is to make backing up photo collections as painless as possible. Unfortunately, my experience with this product was more painful than painless.

For around 15 bucks, you get five DVD discs. When you pop a disc into a DVD drive on a PC running Windows, the software is automatically loaded from the platter into your bytebox and begins searching your hard drive for images.

On my system, likely candidates for backup amounted to 14.2 gigabytes of data; search time was three minutes, 27 seconds. The program only sniffed my hard drive for photo and video files, but what kinds of files the program looks for and where it looks for them can be modified from an options menu. From that menu, you can—