The Best Brella and the EasyL Come Through

I wish I had to ability to create little "sidebar" comments in Blogger for items like this post, rather than interrupt the flow of the main posts.  However, I wanted to comment on how my EasyL and my Best Brella performed in a strong wind at Silver Lake.  Here's a picture of my setup as the wind came up....

You can't see much of the Best Brella in this shot, but believe me, it worked well.  In the afternoon a very stiff breeze came across the lake as I was painting.  Normally I would have immediately taken down my umbrella to prevent having a painting go into the dirt jelly-side-down, but I was impressed with how both the umbrella and the easel stood rock solid and I painted on.  The Best Brella is a expensive version of a regular easel umbrella, but there's a reason...or several reasons for the cost.  The clamp that holds the Best Brella to the easel is amazingly solid and strong.  Nothing is going to move it once it is fastened. Also the umbrella has wind vents and they work.  But if the easel isn't steady, even those features might not be enough. The EasyL has a hook on the tripod that holds a weight, such as a bag with rocks in it.  You can see in this picture how I hook up the backpack that I use to carry the easel and supplies to the painting site.  The weight holds the easel in place impressively during normal painting and, of course, in the wind.  The combination of the well designed industrial strength Best Brella and the hook feature of the EasyL made for a rock solid platform when the strong gusts came up.  There was never even a hint that it all might go over.  I recommend the Best Brella....and of course, I've recommended the EasyL in an earlier post. Quality equipment pays off.