DIY Camera Bag that's not a Camera Bag! (tote+inserts)

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EDIT: New bag full of inserts on page 2! This one worked awesome too!!

Took me forever to find a bag that I like. I had a lowepro slingshot 200AW, just didn't work out for me. Then I bought a manhattan portage messanger bag that I'm now returning since they lied about the dimensions to me (totally wrong).

Well, I just picked this up from JC Penney for 50% off, $30 for the bag! Then $40 for the domke inserts.





It's a docker's stain defender tote bag (the back even has a spot to set on a rolling docker's luggage set, which I happen to have.)



The domke inserts are padded, but not on the bottom. The bottom of the bag has a hard plastic built into it though, so I just laid a piece of high density foam over the bottom.



Full of gear. (sans the camera)



All the stuff in there. the main pocket easily fits my 30D with 17-70 attached, can also fit the 30D with 70-300 attached. The 4 slots on the side have my 70-300, 430ex, rocketblower / others. My 13" powerbook with waterfield case fits in there nicely too, along with my waterfield cable carrier full of batteries, cables, and other things.

Overall, it turned out to work very nice! You can see my other manhattan bag westside messanger bag in the corner of most of the pictures, that's my school bag. Manhattan portage makes real nice bags, which is too bad the one I bought isn't the size they said it was!

[deadpass]

great work!!

[DocFrankenstein]

I think that's a great solution. Certainly looks good having never tried the domke inserts.

I have been looking at bags. Lowepro Edge 300 which I have right now is way too small for the stuff I usually want to carry. It is boxy and doesn't collapse when I take the gear out. This makes for inconvenient shooting.

The padding is great of course, but it's padded too much.

After looking at stealth reporter bags I found them to be extremely similar to my Swiss gear laptop bag. I've been carrying it around for the last 2 years and it is a bag of top notch quality. The stitching, quality of the materials, zippers and overall design can't be beat. Two sections are padded in it and it is very light.

The main benefit is that it's really large when stuffed and collapses next to nothing when you take the gear out.

Basically I feel safe enough to shoot out of it. The only problem anticipated problem was the gear scratching against each other. This was prevented by buying some canvas and making appropriately sized bags for each piece. I got the stylish design for the bags from the potato sacks they use in europe. If you add zippers it almost looks stylish.

So I just stuff all of it in the bag and go out. If I stop shooting I put all of the gear back in and there's no way to tell what I'm carrying in the bag.

[DocFrankenstein]

I can't upload pictures. Must be my new firewall.

Anybody care to upload four sub 100kb jpegs? Thanks

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Originally Posted by DocFrankenstein

I can't upload pictures. Must be my new firewall.

Anybody care to upload four sub 100kb jpegs? Thanks

Doc, shoot em my way and ill attach them here.

srsam[at]tpg.com.au

[cskn0125]

I like this a lot. If i did not need backpack, I would deffinetley go this route if i could find something similar here.

I think you found literally the perfect DIY shoulder bag.

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These are Docs's pics:

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And the other 2.

[DocFrankenstein]

Thank you

[-spam-]

Originally Posted by DocFrankenstein

Thank you

No problem, glad i could help out

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Originally Posted by cskn0125

I like this a lot. If i did not need backpack, I would deffinetley go this route if i could find something similar here.

I think you found literally the perfect DIY shoulder bag.

thank you

Doc; Looks good, that's a pretty neat idea as well!

[jacobsen1]

Where do you buy domke inserts and how much?
I'd love a link as I'm always wanting to tweak my bags, and making my own would be the best solution I think.
Great work!

[jacobsen1]

never mind. Searched "domke inserts" at B&H and got everything I need:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont....x=0&image.y=0

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Originally Posted by jacobsen1

never mind. Searched "domke inserts" at B&H and got everything I need:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/cont....x=0&image.y=0

yep! I have the tall ones, 8" tall each. My girlfriend bought me the 4 compartment divider, the large one pocket divider, and the slim one pocket divider. ended up being about $60 if I remember right. I'm currently not using the slim one pocket, but it'll work nice if I want to fit other things inside the bag, I can pull out the 4 pocket and just use that one.

[NickSimcheck]

Kalamazoo huh?

(...get's in car and drives to Kalamazoo to seal the custom camera bag and the Wii I see in the background)