disguising your gear. do you do it?

Insurance is the key, have all my gear insured and that gives you peace of mind.
Having said that I have a no name backpack, and I make sure that it is always attached to be in some way including the belly and chest straps, when I'm in a questionable area.
When travelling and I have to leave it in the car I make sure that it is locked in the trunk out of sight. Had a briefcase that was left in the back seat stolen once and I'm still finding small pieces of glass from the broken window.
I regularly walk around different areas of Montreal early in the morning and late at night and am not paranoid, but won't put myself in a dangerous situation.
Spent 3 weeks in Scotland last year doing the tourist thing and never even worried about trying to hide the camera or hide the fact that it was a Canon. Kept it around my neck all the time and snapped away.
If you spend all your time worrying about someone stealing your gear you'll miss out on a lot of good photo opportunities.

Wayne

I have a hard time imagining that most theives know that Domke, Lowerpro, Tamrac, etc. means camera bag or would be any more likely to steal a camera with a Canon strap than without it.

thats why I use a Domke strap.
I used to have the blue/red stripe/white CANON EOS DIGITAL LOOK AT ME IM A WALKING MARKETING SCHEME strap, but after I got the domke, I noticed that I got a lot less stares.

Lowerpro and most of the other makes, make other bags than just camera bags. so why do you think that anyone would specifically think its a camera bag ?

The amount of people I have seen over the summer with a SLR and 'L' lens with no type of bag ,make me think their more of a target.

I'm in liverpool too and don't take any real precautions with my kit, apart from keeping one eye on the environment and people around me. here, it will largely depend on where you are - for instance, i wouldn't go round toting my cam with L lens in the middle of bootle (a district of merseyside), but the city area is no probs

Who is your insurance company? Too bad they don't have a war clause, I could use one out here in Iraq...

I don't bother disguising my gear - with my big L zooms, it's always going to look expensive even if I cover over the brands. I do use a POTN strap rather than a Canon one - I prefer it, and I think you're better off without the large manufacturer's logo around your neck.


Proper insurance is a must - in my case, a dedicated photographic policy on which all items that may be in my camera bags or my personal bag are covered. My policy includes my laptop, my portable printer, all my photographic gear and my PDA. It's expensive - much more so than adding the items to a household policy - but the level of cover is much better.

I use a Pacsafe if I leave my camera bag unattended in my car (permitted during daytime hours on my photographic policy), anywhere with dubious locks, or if I'm not using my equipment when at home (I've got an anchor fixed to the wall in a cupboard). Anyone with bolt croppers or similar can cut the Pacsafe and take the gear, but it stops opportunist thievery, and the cut up remains would help in demonstrating that the equipment was taken by forcible means.


The final layer of protection is not to leave all my precious photos in my camera bag. If I'm travelling, I put some DVD+R discs in jewel cases in my main luggage. That way, I can write my data to DVD using my laptop, and I carry the discs in separate luggage to the laptop. If I'm really worried, I can make two copies and mail one back home.

If I have to lock up the camera somewhere, such as the car, with precious photos on the memory card, I often put the memory in a card wallet and keep it on my person.

Aa thief may get my gear (which, whilst frustrating, can be replaced by my insurance once I've paid the excess and, of course, lost my no claims), but I've got the irreplaceable photos.

David

an interesting swathe of opinions so far.

co-incidentallyI have just added a rider onto my home contents policy to cover my camera equipment outside the home (HSBC policy, extra £4pm for £2k cover) but still i'd prefer to not lose my gear even if i will get a new one on insurance and i think not advertising your gear is still the best way of avoiding a run-in where that might happen.

edit: and i forgot to mention. i like your idea of seperating the memory cards from the camera david, its not something i do at the moment but there are situations where i've definately thought about doing something similiar.

insurance is a cheep piece of mind.

personally I don't care. its too difficult to disguise it or hide it, so I flaunt it, and have never had problems, not even in repeated trips to 3rd world countries

I don't disguise my equipment. If anyone has the balls to try and punk me out for my gear let them try. If they manage to beat me down, kill me or "pick pocket" my 1d w/ 70-200 lens attached out of my carrying case slung over my shoulder, then I guess I deserved it.

i wouldn't mind adding a wire onto the shoulder strap for my domke bag. that's as far as i would go.

I wish somebody WOULD try and steal my gear...
I shoot mostly urban areas/subjects (brooklyn, bronx, spanish harlem) and have never had a problem... I think it's my swagger :P

I bought my insurance thru PPA (speaking of which I need to add my 10-22 and my fisheye to the policy)

If people want straps with metal mesh embedded, or a Pacsafe, there's details on all the Pacsafe products here. I notice that they're about to release a photography insert for their duffel bag, but it doesn't look as well designed overall as the Lowepro Stealth Reporter D650AW I use when I'm carrying all my kit including my laptop. Nevertheless, a bag with the mesh embedded would be useful - it's not often I could make use of a Pelican case if I had one, but a shoulder bag is useful to me.


Ciqala - your add-on cover with HSBC seems quite reasonable. My Glover and Howe amateur policy costs me around £220 per year, but I am covered for £8500 (20D, BG-E2, EF 16-35mm f/2.8L, EF 24-70mm f/2.8L, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, Speedlite 580EX, tripod, head, laptop, portable printer, filters, hoods, bags, straps, memory cards, odds and ends). The cover is UK and up to 60 days worldwide for the photography kit (the laptop and computer bits are UK only).

It's amazing how the value mounts up. The cover is, in some ways, superior to an ordinary household policy, as it's based on new replacement and my understanding is that, unlike most insurance, betterment is possible. The aim is that stolen items are replaced with nearest equivalent - for example, if my 20D was stolen, I should be left in a position to buy a 30D now that the 20D is discontinued.

I'm also allowed to do things that I doubt household policies would allow, such as leave up to £6500 of kit in a locked car during the day, and it's covered (nevertheless, I have a Category 1 alarm/immobiliser, I lock the bag down to a tie-down loop welded into the car's floorpan using a Pacsafe, and lock the boot manually so that opening the central locking is insufficient to gain access).


I scan all my receipts and upload them onto my hosting account (outside the folders that the web server uses), so that I can get at copies if there's a fire at home and my filing cabinet is destroyed. I also keep details of all my kit in a spreadsheet, which makes keeping my insurance records up to date much easier. I note down the purchase price and date of everything in the spreadsheet, but also keep track of replacement value, which isn't necessarily the purchase price and is what I'm required to insure for.

David

I put 'Nikon' stickers over all the 'Canon' labeling so nobody will want to steal it.

This is why I carry a Glock 29....