Camera bags

I love camera bags. 

I am what you may call, a bit of a camera bag junkie!

I have six camera bags and an aluminium wheeled case.

In no particular order of preference, they are  .  .  .

Billingham 550

The oldest. 

I purchased it in 1988. It's a massive Billingham 550 and cost me £108 which, at the time was a LOT of money but I was prepared to pay this because lots of other photographers were using them as they are hard wearing.  The latest price on their website is now £500! You can read about it here. You can also read my review of it on that page.

The Billingham 550. 
Can accommodate one toddler or lots of camera gear

 

 

 

 

As I mentioned at the beginning, this bag is massive and oozes quality. With hand stitching, brass fittings and waterproof materials used in its construction, it's also quite heavy even when empty! It can comfortably seat an eighteen month old toddler and an SLR! I normally put loads of stuff in it or use it as an airline cabin bag.

Weighing in at 2.6 Kilograms empty, it's the bag that I put in my car and just take stuff out of it as I need it. At the moment it holds an EOS 6d, an EOS 7d plus grip, a 16 - 35 zoom, a 24 - 105 zoom, two Canon Speedlite 420 EX's plus cleaning cloths, batteries, memory cards and miscellaneous other items. The total weight of all these items together with the bag is 11 kilograms. Wash it occasionally with warm soapy water and treat it afterwards with a weatherproofing spray and it'll last for decades.


Billingham System 3

A smaller Billingham bag is also in my collection and I tend to use it for my GoPro Fusion or my Drone stuff. It's also an "oldie" and I paid about £20 for it second hand back in the early nineties (probably around 1994). I searched online for it to find out the model number but eventually resorted to contacting Billingham directly where the helpful Mel told me this: 

 

"The model of bag was a System. There were 3 versions of it System 2, System 3 or System 4. It definitely isn't a System 2, speaking to some of the longer working members of staff we think its a System 3 which was a predecessor to the 335".

I use it now for my GoPro Fusion 360 degree camera and an action camera together with all their accessories.

Hama Katoomba 190 RL

A more recent addition to my collection. The Hama Katoomba190RL. I bought it in 2012 to reduce the stress on my back and shoulders from years of using a normal camera bag. Old habits however die hard and I still find myself picking up and using one of my other "over the shoulder" bags. I wrote about it here and here. 

On my way to a photoshoot with the 

Katoomba and lighting stands

Really well designed and packs a lot in 

It also has a built in rainproof cover.

Tamrac 5606 System 6

Found in a charity shop. In my youth I always wanted a Tamrac but they were out of my price range. I use mine for my Fujifilm cameras. Mine holds a flash, an X-H1 with grip, an X-E2s, an 18-55 zoom, a 10-18 zoom, a 55 - 200 zoom, a 23mm and a 35mm plus batteries and memorycards This one has storage for rolls of film (which shows its age) and cost me twenty Swiss francs ($20 or £17).

 

My Tamrac provides lots of space and is great quality

 

Jessops noname 

Bought in London in the eighties. This bag has been a constant companion and has travelled the World with me. The colour has faded considerably but it is still lightweight and very comfortable to sling over my shoulder.

 

No name Jessop's own brand bag

 

Luckily the cat left before my job.

Mekko Report Series Professional Photo Bag

An impulse buy from an auction site. Not yet used and still in the cardboard box in which it arrived. Made in Taiwan from 100% natural cotton canvas with waterproof coating and lots of compartments and stainless steel hardware (zips, buckles etc.). It is a clone/copy of a similar Domke model but a lot less expensive. More details here. There is a great in-depth review of it on this site.

No Name former Makeup case

The last and most recent item in my collection is another charity shop find. 

It is a three section aluminium wheeled case. I paid the princely sum of twenty Swiss francs ($20 or £17) for it. There is no  maker's name visible and it has lots of bumps and scratches which bear testament to its ruggedness. A set of keys were included in the price. There is also a collapsible handle which makes it easy to handle and steer when wheeling it around.

  

 

According to a sticker which was attached to the case when I bought it, the former owner was a make up artist so I thoroughly cleaned it when I got it back home because I didn't want any left over residue (powders etc) getting inside my gear.

The case opened up.

As mentioned, it is in three separate compartments. I use the top compartment to hold lighting gear. There are three Speedlites, a Phottix Odin flash trigger set and various Lambency Universal light diffusors and filters.

The middle part holds two DSLR's and four lenses together with a small Tupperware container with spare batteries and memory cards in it and a bag with cleaning cloths.

The bottom section has all manner of accessories including screwdrivers, hotshoe spirit levels (invaluable), filters and batteries etc

This case is slowly getting more and more use from me especially on a big shoot.

So that's it. I have a collection of bags which have served and continue to serve me well.

Sometimes however, I just can be bothered to schlep a bag around with me and if I know that I won't be needing lots of equipment, I'll but take the bare minimum, like this when I recently did an interior shoot near Zürich!

EOS 6d, tripod and 16-35 zoom lens

Thanks for reading. Do you also have more than one camera bag? Let me know in the comments.

Tom

Because I want to (Part 2)

Last April, almost one year ago from today, I wrote a post about photographing a place called Diegten near where I live. It's a place that I always look at when driving by because it is so photogenic.

Last year I finally made  the decision to photograph a rather picturesque cow barn surrounded by cherry blossoms.

Diegten April 2011

The thing with photographing the blossom is that it only stays on the trees for a couple of days before falling off. If the weather isn't nice during those few days then you're out of luck.

My friend Stephan rang me this morning to say that the blossom was now in full bloom and that the sky was a deep blue. Ideal conditions except that the position of the sun meant that I'd be shooting directly into it. I decided instead to wait an hour or two then see what would happen with the weather.

True to form, it was overcast when I got there. my plan had been to try and get a picture of the barn framed through the cherry blossom tree branches.

I met with Stephan as arranged and we set off to find a good vantage point to shoot the barn through the trees.

Unfortunately, there was a crop growing in the field beneath the barn exactly where I would like to have stood. Also, the trees were all grouped to the left which meant that when I shot through them, I'd only be getting the left side of the barn. Not an ideal situation.

Not wanting to go home just yet, we decided to take a walk up the hill behind the barn. I'm glad we did. The sun came out and there was lots to photograph. 

The barn itself was photogenic but of more interest was the trailer standing nearby.. I switched to a 17 - 40 zoom and took a few images.

 I switched back to my 70 - 200 and tried a few "selective" landscapes.

Carrying on along the road gave us more exercise for our trigger fingers.

 A buzzard was always flying by

Finally I had to call it a day and reflect upon what we'd done.

On the way back to the car I snapped these with the 70 - 200

 1/320 sec @ f10

1/1000 sec @ f5.6

I was really pleased to be walking with the Hama Katoomba rucksack. I've previously briefly mentioned it here and here.

My days of carrying everything in a shoulder bag are ended. I could have kept on going. The bag is really comfortable. I'll write more about it soon but in the meantime here's a pic of yours truly taken today by Stephan.

Image by Stephan Abt.

Thanks for reading

Test drive

My old EOS 5 has been replaced with its successor, the EOS 5d Mark II.

I've also replaced my old 50 f1.8 with the new 1.4 version. Last Sunday I decided to test both out on a walk.

Fresh out of the box

A friend told me about a popular trail called the "1000 Steps" in the nearby Kanton (county) of Aargau. which leads up the side of a hill. I thought to myself that one thousand steps is only a name. It's probably a couple of hundred at most....

 First image with the new combo. 

1/400 sec Av Mode at f2.8

 1000 Steps (in local dialect)

1/250 sec at f2.5

 Big mistake. 

 One thousand steps is actually 1140 steps which go up an incline of about thirty degrees.

 The steps are thoughtfully labelled.

The first one hundred were OK. Perhaps because I had the rucksack on my back and was leaning forward. This adjusted my centre of gravity forwards and "helped" (maybe only psychologically) to keep up an even pace.

Another 600 to go.

Or so I thought.....

I was really pleased that I had the rucksack with me. I would really have considered giving up if I'd had my shoulder bag with me. With the rucksack, I had both hands free to steady and guide myself.

The Hama Katoomba 190RL

Over the halfway mark but still 

another 400 to go.

It's a bit of a let down when you reach the 1000 steps mark and there's still more steps to go!! Another one hundred and forty to be exact.

Steps as far as you can see.

Heart pounding and completely out of breath, I reached the top forty five minutes after setting off. "So what was at the top?" I hear you ask. Nothing much. Just a forest trail and a vantage point about three minutes walk from the top of the steps.

A place to rest and gaze out over the county.

1/200 at f13 (see here)

This is one of my favourite images taken on that day with the 50mm lens. There is no Photoshop jiggery-Pokery involved. I processed the RAW file in DPP, sharpened it a bit and added some saturation. All in all I am well pleased with the camera.

 1/80 sec at f2.8


Thanks for reading. BTW All images were taken with the 200 ISO speed set on the camera.

Here at last

It took a full two weeks after ordering it, but my new photo rucksack has finally arrived.


As mentioned briefly here, I decided to get myself a rucksack to save my back from aching as it did when I was recently in Tessin with my normal Tamrac bag.

Fresh from the postman

First impressions are that even though it feels heavy when I pick it up, it still feels a lot better when it's on my back. The Katoomba 190 RL bag that I bought can be worn on the left or right shoulder  (hence the RL in the name)


The bag can also be swung around to the front where easy access to the insides is granted.

Instructions included

For now I'm still getting used to it but will write a bit more about it when I've used it in the field.


In the meantime you can read more about it here.


Thanks for stopping by.