| Author | Message | ||
     Cooltouch Tinkerer Username: Cooltouch Post Number: 124 Registered: 01-2009 Rating: N/A |
I was a camera dealer back in the late 80s and early to mid 90s -- went to most all the shows in California, even a few east -- Denver, Houston, Dallas, New Orleans. I usually made my best money by buying peoples' outfits then selling the pieces off individually. Most all the outfits came with camera bags or cases and I've kept almost all of them. So I have lots of bags and several cases, most of which are 20 years old or more. My most often used bags are medium-sized LeMans, Lowe Pro, and Tamrac. I have a couple of Pelican cases, a small Haliburton, and a couple other hard cases. They haven't been used in years though. Nowadays it seems things have changed. I don't see much in the way of traditional looking bags anymore. They're all backpacks or they look like airport roller carry-ons. I've checked a lot of them out 'cuz I like these ideas -- they're easier on my bad back. A backpack doesn't hurt my back as badly as hanging a heavy shoulder bag off one shoulder. But geez-louize! The prices! No effin' way am I paying $250 for a cool-looking roller bag just cuz it has cut-outs for cameras and lenses. Recently my wife bought some shelves and we crammed them into our den. I gave in only because she let me have half the shelf space. So what I've done is empty all my camera gear onto the shelves and now all my bags are empty. This gives me a clean slate and I can organize things better. We have a few backpacks around here and a couple of carry-ons with the wheels. I have decided to build inserts for these items and convert them into bags. For the inserts I will use a combination of closed foam and Styrofoam insulation. You can buy 24" x 72" sheets of closed foam, which are meant for campers to put between their sleeping bags and the ground to keep them warm, and then cut them to fit. They aren't all that good for separators, but they make good cushions. The Styrofoam is available in 4 ft. x 8 ft. sheets at the big box stores. These sheets are about 1/2" thick. This isn't your typical styrofoam. It's formulated to be used as housing insulation to replace the fluffy pink stuff. Anyway, it's quite stiff, and makes for good separators. All this can be glued together to assemble the inserts for the backpacks and carry-ons. I prefer contact cement, but I'm sure there's other stuff out there that'll work well too. I've assembled all my materials, bags, and gear. Now I just need to decide on what is going where. When you have three fairly large and two medium sized system, plus a whole lot of miscellaneous gear, it's hard to decide which is gonna go where. |