Re: The unending quest
Divide and conquer. You’re talking about three different situations, storage, transport and shooting. For storage I divide everything by system: Pentax, Leica and MFT, and generic accessories. Each gets its own case; I use a Pelican hard case and two Vanguard soft cases with dividers, and a variety of Domke bags as well as inserts from Topo Designs, Crumpler and Artist and Artisan. Any kind of bag with suitable dividers or inserts would be ok. For travel I generally decant what I need either directly into a Domke bag, or into an insert and some other non-camera bag. I’d use the Pelican, with padlocks, for any travel where I needed some security. Some of the inserts fit nicely into a handlebar bag for my bike; they can also go into a backpack or suitcase, or a larger travel camera bag. For shooting I normally work from shoulder bags; I don’t like using a backpack, but the principle of divide and conquer holds either way. This generally involves further decanting a subset of the kit to match whatever I want to photograph into an insert and/or a shoulder bag. I used a Domke F-2 for many years*, and I still have it, but it holds more than I want to carry. If I find myself thinking of using it, it means I’m taking too much, so I think again and take less stuff in a smaller bag. Fanny packs/bum bags - just say no. A more versatile option is to use a belt, worn like a tool belt or a gunslinger’s gun belt, with pouches that you can swap and change according to need. I have a Domke webbing belt and a couple of pouches, although in all honesty I’ve never used them. Don’t know if you can still buy them but one of the other manufacturers will make something similar. Lowepro had something similar in the Street & Field range. *When I was travelling quite a lot in the 90s I packed my clothes and most other stuff, including film, in the Pelican and it went into the hold of aircraft or buses. I packed one change of clothes and all my camera kit into the F-2 and it came with me as carry-on. When I was at the hotel or on a train, especially a sleeper, most of the camera kit would go into the Pelican, which I could lock and attach to something, and I’d keep a small working kit with me. It’s ok to travel light. This is from ‘American Geography’ by Matt Black of Magnum: “I’m catching the 11pm train from Fresno to Calexico, 438 miles, 10 hours. One backpack with one pair of pants, one long-sleeved shirt, one T-shirt, jacket, hat, four pairs of socks. Panasonic camera, XPan camera, six lenses, thirty rolls of film. From Calexico, I’ll take the bus cross-country, to Bangor, Maine, and back. It’s 3,317 miles, one way. About six weeks.” https://www.mattblack.com/american-geography -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-le...@pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: The unending quest
As far as camera bags go, for the last several decades I've stuck with a couple of brand names - Lowepro & Pelican. When I was carrying a couple of camera bodies (film or digital) and a reasonable selection of lenses (28-200 or so on film, 16-250 on the APS-C digitals) together with TCs, flashes, etc. I usually managed to cram everything into a LowePro Magnum AW. Now I'm only carrying a single Micro 4/3 body (albeit one that is a bit larger and heavier than most of it's brethren), and a pair of zooms (a 12-100 and a 40-150) I've gone back to using my old LowePro Nova 4. As far as Pelicans go I've got two - a smaller one (which could still hold pretty much what I could cram into the Magnum), and a larger one which could hold all that with room for the 250-600. Of course that 250-600 comes with its own case (as does my other big glass, the 300/2.8), so I only needed the Pelicans if I was flying, rather than driving). -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-le...@pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: happy thanksgiving
Thanks, Dave. Cloudy and cold here with snow in the forecast. -p On 11/23/2023 11:44 AM, David J Brooks wrote: Happy Thanksgiving to my US odf A friends, hope everyone has a safe holiday. Ours was a month ago in nicer weather, just saying,:-) Dave -- Paul Sorenson Studio1941 Sooner or later "different" scares people. -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-le...@pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
Re: The unending quest
Well, FWIW, I'm still using the Lowepro Mini Trekker AW. I've used it since the days I mostly carried only 3 lenses - Tokina 28-70 f/2.8; Tokina 80-200 f/2.8 and Sigma 300 f/2.8 plus one body (K10D or K20D) with the other carried on my sling with FA-50 f/1.4 mounted ... or alternatively with the other body carried on the sling with the 28-70 f/2.8 mounted & the FA-50 f/1.4 in the bag. Plus a Sigma 1.4 tele-converter, strobe, spare batteries, chargers & a few other accessories. [... and later the K-3 & K20D ... and later still the K-1/K-3 and most recently K-1/K-3 with the IR converted K20D - 1 in the bag, 1 on the sling & the K20D on a neck strap] If I need to carry any more than that I have the Lowepro Nature Trekker AW II. Haven't thought about looking for another bag for a while, but I might get a Lowepro CompuTrekker AW - just looking at them it seems to be the same as my workhorse Mini Trekker, but with room for a laptop. I also HAVE the Lowepro Fastpak 350 - got it real cheap from Tiger Direct when they had a retail store in the area. Didn't take too long to figure out WHY it was so cheap - didn't have enough carrying capacity to be useful. You do realize that IF you could find a general purpose, all-around bag suitable for EVERY occasion, it wouldn't be an unending quest. Had a GREAT Thanksgiving. Everything I cooked WORKED. I've still got leftovers to pack away, just as soon as I take a nap ... On 11/23/2023 4:51 PM, Larry Colen wrote: I hope that everyone is enjoying their American day of gluttony.I have a topic of conversation that is about as prone to consensus as family thanksgiving debates about politics or religion should prove as popular with y'all as off topic threads about whisky or an interminable pun thread: gear storage and transport, aka camera bags and related. I will observe that preferences for camera bags, tend to be even more personal than preferences in the bedroom, and one’s individual needs, even more diverse. Hell, my camera bag needs will change dramatically depending on whether I’m driving some place for astrolandscapes, or going for a hike in the woods. So… Before you tell me what works for you, think about what I say about my needs, and first let me know of what you think would solve my problems, then you can mention why your preference is the one true camera bag. For many years, I used a Lowepro Fastpak 350, it was big enough to hold all, or then most, of my lenses. Then two things happened, they stopped making them, and I got my K-1. With my K-1 I got a bunch more full frame wider angle of view lenses, many of which are modern designs which are also bigger and heavier. There just wasn’t room in the 350, and I replaced that with a Tenba, which was a bit bigger, and also had external straps for a tripod which worked until I expanded my lens collection even more. Now that bag is just way to effing heavy if I want to be prepared “for whatever”. Also, my job moved to Riverside (about 400 miles south of my home base in Santa Cruz) and I’m spending most of my time there, where I now need to rethink how I store the gear that I’m not immediately using. I’ve been muddling along, and yesterday saw an ad for a think tank rolling airporter bag. At first the system looks awesome, if pricey and there’s a Neewer 2 in 1 for less than half the price, that also has backpack straps. But, I really don’t need wheels, and don’t plan to do much flying in the near future anyways. Besides I have a Pelican case, which in many ways is great, but all that protection weighs a lot and takes up a lot of space. One challenge that I face is that lenses tend to come in three size ranges: small: classic Pentax primes, and most micro 4/3 Medium: modern primes and classic zooms Large: modern zooms, and classic telephoto The challenge is that a camera bag that fits medium/large lenses could carry the small lenses stacked two deep, or stacked over a compartment filled with speedlights etc. but end up with the smaller lenses rattling around loosely. I have found myself with three systems: Micro 4/3: I carry my micro 4/3 on my bike. It does better than my phone (though my phone is catching up) and is about half the weight of my APS Pentax. APS DSLR: My K-3 III makes a great daily driver system. In most shooting situations the results are either indistinquishable from my K-1, or often better. It also has the advantage of the lenses being lighter, and my telephotos have greater reach (yeah I could crop on the K-1 but it still has a faster frame rate, and better autofocus). Full Frame DSLR: When I need a wider angle of view the K-1 still works better than the K-3III because physics. The K-1 lenses all work on the K-3 III but often at the cost of weighing twice as much. What I think that I’d like is a few camera bags, one primarily dedicated to each camera body, with the lenses I most use with that body, and
The unending quest
I hope that everyone is enjoying their American day of gluttony.I have a topic of conversation that is about as prone to consensus as family thanksgiving debates about politics or religion should prove as popular with y'all as off topic threads about whisky or an interminable pun thread: gear storage and transport, aka camera bags and related. I will observe that preferences for camera bags, tend to be even more personal than preferences in the bedroom, and one’s individual needs, even more diverse. Hell, my camera bag needs will change dramatically depending on whether I’m driving some place for astrolandscapes, or going for a hike in the woods. So… Before you tell me what works for you, think about what I say about my needs, and first let me know of what you think would solve my problems, then you can mention why your preference is the one true camera bag. For many years, I used a Lowepro Fastpak 350, it was big enough to hold all, or then most, of my lenses. Then two things happened, they stopped making them, and I got my K-1. With my K-1 I got a bunch more full frame wider angle of view lenses, many of which are modern designs which are also bigger and heavier. There just wasn’t room in the 350, and I replaced that with a Tenba, which was a bit bigger, and also had external straps for a tripod which worked until I expanded my lens collection even more. Now that bag is just way to effing heavy if I want to be prepared “for whatever”. Also, my job moved to Riverside (about 400 miles south of my home base in Santa Cruz) and I’m spending most of my time there, where I now need to rethink how I store the gear that I’m not immediately using. I’ve been muddling along, and yesterday saw an ad for a think tank rolling airporter bag. At first the system looks awesome, if pricey and there’s a Neewer 2 in 1 for less than half the price, that also has backpack straps. But, I really don’t need wheels, and don’t plan to do much flying in the near future anyways. Besides I have a Pelican case, which in many ways is great, but all that protection weighs a lot and takes up a lot of space. One challenge that I face is that lenses tend to come in three size ranges: small: classic Pentax primes, and most micro 4/3 Medium: modern primes and classic zooms Large: modern zooms, and classic telephoto The challenge is that a camera bag that fits medium/large lenses could carry the small lenses stacked two deep, or stacked over a compartment filled with speedlights etc. but end up with the smaller lenses rattling around loosely. I have found myself with three systems: Micro 4/3: I carry my micro 4/3 on my bike. It does better than my phone (though my phone is catching up) and is about half the weight of my APS Pentax. APS DSLR: My K-3 III makes a great daily driver system. In most shooting situations the results are either indistinquishable from my K-1, or often better. It also has the advantage of the lenses being lighter, and my telephotos have greater reach (yeah I could crop on the K-1 but it still has a faster frame rate, and better autofocus). Full Frame DSLR: When I need a wider angle of view the K-1 still works better than the K-3III because physics. The K-1 lenses all work on the K-3 III but often at the cost of weighing twice as much. What I think that I’d like is a few camera bags, one primarily dedicated to each camera body, with the lenses I most use with that body, and some way of storing the rest of my lenses, so that I could pick and choose what I need for that day of shooting, or just pack everything up for a photo trip and carry it fairly securely. I haven’t found good camera cases for the storage/transport issue, but for a while I was using the old Rigid toolbox system for something similar, and the new boxes seem to be much improved. Not quite Pelican quality, but still fairly weather proof, solid and the smaller box is only $30: https://www.homedepot.com/p/RIDGID-2-0-Pro-Gear-System-Power-Tool-Case-254069/320483553 I suspect that some well made dividers and padding could turn these into something that would work well, with the cases sorted by use case. One question would be how to make the dividers and padding. As an aside I suspect that there’s a market opportunity for turning these job boxes into photo gear boxes. My Tenba is pretty good for holding a lot of gear, and will probably continue to be my K-1 bag. I’ve got an old Lowepro fanny (American not British usage) pack camera bag that nearly works for a hike in the woods with a couple of lenses, but I just can’t get it adjusted so that it doesn’t flop over. I’d love suggestions for a good fanny pack for carrying photo gear. I’d also love suggestions for a good medium sized backpack, that’ll carry a camera body, a variety of lenses, and which I can conveniently carry a tripod on. I’m not generally a fan of over the shoulder camera bags. I know that
Re: happy thanksgiving
It will be if the turkey finishes cooking on time. Going well SO FAR! I hope all the rest of y'all have a good turkey day. 56°F outside (about 13°C), but it's sunny, so if the kitchen gets a little too warm all I gotta' do is open the back door & let a little cooler air in. Got family coming, so I gotta' get back to work. On 11/23/2023 12:44 PM, David J Brooks wrote: Happy Thanksgiving to my US odf A friends, hope everyone has a safe holiday. Ours was a month ago in nicer weather, just saying,:-) Dave Try this again using the correct email account ... -- Vivere in aeternum aut mori conatur -- This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software. www.avg.com -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-le...@pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
happy thanksgiving
Happy Thanksgiving to my US odf A friends, hope everyone has a safe holiday. Ours was a month ago in nicer weather, just saying,:-) Dave -- Documenting Life in Rural Ontario. www.caughtinmotion.com http://brooksinthecountry.blogspot.com/ York Region, Ontario, Canada -- %(real_name)s Pentax-Discuss Mail List To unsubscribe send an email to pdml-le...@pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
