112 — Why camera bags suck

Pho­tog­ra­phy pod­cast #112 addresses a ques­tion posed by Gor­don Laing on Google+
The best cam­era bag — what do you use?

I replied to that ques­tion say­ing that these days I usu­ally shoot bag free and keep my lenses that are in lens hold­ing cases, attached to my belt as per the pic­ture below. In case peo­ple are inter­ested, here is a list of the items that I carry with me most of the time with­out a bag. Gitzo car­bon fibre tri­pod (2540LLVL) also referred to as ‘my baby’. That’s on a Gitzo tri­pod shoul­der strap slung diag­o­nally around my shoul­der. It’s an ‘OK’ strap, no bet­ter. I’m still hunt­ing for the per­fect tri­pod shoul­der strap. Usu­ally I carry 3 lenses;  Nikon 14–24, Nikon 28–300, Nikon 50mm and 1 flash, the SB-800.

More details on the exact lenses and lens hold­ers are listed in the affil­i­ate links below from B&H.

I also carry in my pock­ets a cable release, spare bat­ter­ies, lens cloth and a hex key for my cam­era bracket plate. Not shown is the flash­light that I’ll often have with me for night shoots. Not shown are the cokin fil­ters that I some­times keep in a pouch around my neck.

Obvi­ously this setup will not work for many peo­ple car­ry­ing very large lenses and heav­ier gear — but this will work for most peo­ple that shoot with lenses that are about as large as an aver­age 70-200mm  F-2.8. This setup is also meant to give peo­ple new ideas on car­ry­ing gear.

I’m also seri­ously into know­ing if other peo­ple have alter­na­tive gear car­ry­ing meth­ods so please feel free to share by commenting.

No camera bag

Although it’s no fash­ion get up, this set-up allows my back to feel great and it allows me to change lenses quickly.

Links /resources men­tioned in this podcast:

Lowe­pro S&F Lens Exchange Case 200AW at B&H - My favourite lens hold­ing case. It’s FAB!

Pear­stone Onyx 60 Lens Case — In the pod­cast I talk about the Lowe­pro 2S but it seems to be dis­con­tin­ued. This model seems to have sim­i­lar specs.

Lowe­pro 50mm lens holder at B&H

Lens Changer 75 Pop Down V2.0 from Think tank for larger lenses like a 100-400mm or for shoot­ing 70-200mm with the lens hood attached. You may need to buy their belt to use this though.

Nikon 28-300mm f/3.5–5.6G ED VR Zoom Lens at B&H — I just love the ver­sa­til­ity of the focal range.

Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8G ED AF Lens at B&H - This lens and I are hav­ing a won­der­ful rela­tion­ship, I love her.

Gitzo GT2540LLVL Lev­el­ing Car­bon Fiber Tri­pod at B&H - This tri­pod works well for me. Fairly big but not too big.

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