What's In Your Bag?

Looks like dpreview did a short hands-on with it:

Looks nice!

Hey, I love my bag ALMOST as much as I love my camera, so I thought I’d share here (sorry, currently no pics, but will get to that soon) - my bag is this wonderful Bestek camera bag, my camera is a Nikon DX (18-55mm) currently my only extra lenses are basic uv protection lens, Vivitar series 1 (wide angle and macro) -and a cheap circular polarizer and neutral density lens (neither have been used yet!)

Elizabeth/lizardbreath

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…but I do also own a Pentax k-1000 (my first camera!) - I plan on implementing that lens onto my newer camera, since i do not have a darkroom, or have the money for one, sad to say, ah well

just bought some stuff, thought I’d share :slight_smile: …a new uv protection lens and my favorite form of camera lens cleaners - lenspens! …yeah, I’m lazy, so these are very convienent. :slight_smile:

Here’s my Kalahari bag and what’s inside usually:

The Kalahari bag is affordable, but it misses separators, some extra padding at the bottom would be good too. I wish I had the larger model, this one is a bit too small.

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  • Peak Everyday Messenger
  • Peak Slide
  • Fuji X-T2+Grip+Peak Cuff
  • Fuji 16mm/f1.4
  • Fuji 60mm/f2.4
  • Fuji 56/f1.2
  • What ever the kit lens was
  • Godox TT685F + Trigger with the LumoPro LightSwitch Speedlight Case and Modifier

and probably soon will follow

  • Fuji 23mm (not sure yet if f2 or f1.4)
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Hi! Nice bag though for a smaller kit maybe. Which model is this please?

Hi, the bag is a Kalahari Molopo K41i. Another complaint I have is that since it is not very rigid, it’s almost impossible to open/close the zipper with a single hand. But it’s a cheap bag, I paid only about 20 euros for it.

…actually, my lens is a Nikon DX, my camera is a Nikon 3200…had to fix that :slight_smile:

Wanted a small city bag for camera plus 2 lenses and selected the Ona Bowery model … absolute disaster!! The design as such cleverly funnels water into the bag at each end. Lucky I have waterproof gear.

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I condensed it down to a pretty complete full-frame kit. Everything has a place and is there for a reason, everything is used regularly. The bag is always packed like that, I don’t adapt my bag to different shooting situations, I just grab it and I know it’s all there.

Not shown is the flash-bag (holding a supplementary five flashlights, umbrellas, softbox, stands), the tripod (an old but very trusty Manfrotto 190 that I own for more than 20 years now) and four or five printed model-releases that are stuffed in the rear of the bag.

upper half:
SD-Card safe, air ballon, replacement-battery and charger
AF-S Nikkor 2.8 70-200, D610 with 2.8 24-70, 1.8 85, 1.8 35, 1.4 50 and Tokina AT-X Pro 3.5 17 aspherical

lower half:
Carry-Speed camera-belt, Metz AF58-N, Pixl shutter-command
Notebook, lens-swipes, pen, namecards, microfiber-cloth, lensbrush, toothpicks, tape

It all fits in the Billingham 335 quite snuggly and - YES - my smartphone-camera is crap.

@beachbum it’s impossible to click on your images to view them larger without logging in to yahoo. Why not just attach them here?

I scaled them down to 800 * 560. They are’t even sharp because the good camera is on the table … I’m afraid there’s no better resolution

M4/3 for life! Lol!

Pictured is my entire kit, roughly split along these lines (accessories not shown):

KIT #1 (small, modular, EDC kit):
EM10ii body with battery and card: 400g
Olympus 45mm f1.8: 116g
Panasonic 20mm f1.7: 100g
Panasonic 14mm f2.5: 55g
Fujifilm WL-FXE01 Wide Angle Converter (10.5mm when used with the panny 14mm): 95g
Olympus 9mm f8 BCL: 30g
Accessories (No-name slim camera strap, 46mm screw in lens hood, 37-46mm step up ring, Hoya HD 46mm cpl filter): ~50g
Extra BLS5 battery: 51g
TOTAL: 897g

KIT #2 (larger, versatile, high quality kit):
EM1ii body with battery and card: 574g
Olympus 12-40mm f2.8 PRO: 382g
Pentax 50mm f1.8 plus fotodiox converter: 170g
Olympus 75-300mm f5.6-6.7: 423g
Accessories (Peak design strap 104g, B+W 67mm cpl): ~120g
TOTAL: 1669g

Extra lenses (not used every day):
Olympus 40-150mm f4-5.6
Fujian 35mm ~f1.2

Other accessories:
Me photo Roadtrip tripod with short column.
DIY pano head made from arca macro rails and some small rotating arca clamps.
L brackets for both cameras.
A cheap set of square filters (ND and ND grad) and filter holder.

In terms of bags, I have a bad obsession. Here’s two bags that I use (but I have more):

PS: my current experiment in bags is worth the Tenba BYOB 7 and the packlight bag for it. Very modular, and appears to be great for minimalist travel. A bit impractical for a daily carry though.

@patdavid How do you like those Yongnuo lights? I am seriously thinking of getting into off camera lighting. Everything I’ve read points me to either Yongnuo or Godox. Godox seems to have advantage if you want TTL, but people really like their Yongnuo manual lights. Neewer also comes in for manual lights. How do you find using those Yongnuo’s with MFT? Do they dwarf the camera when used in the hotshot? The Godox tt350o looks like a good size match for M43, but not as powerful. I have a small Olympus FL-LM3 (

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1118048-REG/olympus_v326150bw000_fl_lm3_flash.html) that is nice on the EM1ii, but doesn’t work with the EM10ii for some bizarre reason…

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I had a K-1000 for years. It was.my first “real” camera, actually, bought for me by my dad back in the early 1990’s. Sadly, I sold it in a fit of hubris in the early days of digital photography when I thought I would never get the urge to shoot film again. I agree with you that the experience if shooting with that camera was so tactile and visceral. Everything manual, everything based on your knowledge of light and the mechanics of your camera. Lots of mistakes, but a lot of happy accidents too. Wish I had not sold that guy…

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OM-D E-M10 + M.Zuiko 9-18/4-5.6, OM 50/3.5 (macro), maybe CZJ Pancolar 50/1.8 or M.Zuiko 25/1.8
I used to shoot a lot of tele, with the 40-150/4-5.6. or the OM 135/2.8
I have lots of other lenses, mostly manual
bag itself is a small green Manfrotto Stile

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Hehe back in 2012 …oh brother. Don’t have any recent one, so I’ll post this. This was my street photography/minimalist biking-and-shooting gear.

Bag: Bundeswehr MFH Kampftasche BW groß, oliv, 30113B - German Army Battlebag
Camera: Canon Rebel XT (EOS 350D)
Lens: EFs 17-85 f4-5.6 IS
Camera strap: MATIN D-SLR RF Mirrorless Camera Vintage-20 Leather Neck Shoulder Strap Tan
Music Player: iRiver H120 - 20GB This player featured some of the best sound I have yet heard out of a portable device. Too bad the battery died :frowning:
Notebook: Moleskine Classic Notebook (black) small non-lined hard cover
Hoodie: Old Navy lined zipper hoodie
Water bottle: San Pelegrino
Keychain lanyard: Deviantart

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You people with your gear and bags. I have a camera and lens that I keep in a plastic produce bag. Low budget indeed!

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Oh, I’ve been meaning to post to this thread for a while, thanks @lizardbreath for resurrecting it.

I have three ‘active’ kits right now. This is my digital kit:

Body is a Nikon D7000, purchased right at discontinuance for the lowest price I’ve seen for it. Lens are a AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR, which is only detached from the body for this portrait, and a AF-S DX Micro-NIKKOR 40mm f/2.8G, which I bought mainly for slide copying. Both lenses are refurbs.

The bag is a Travelon Anti-Theft Urban Messenger bag, not a camera bag per se, but my essential kit fits in it. Wife bought this and the camera strap for a recent vacation, both have steel cables embedded to thwart cut-n-run snatching.

The small mesh bag contains batteries and SD cards, and is what I grab for pick-up snapshooting. Next to it is a ColorChecker Passport, which I’m endeavoring to incorporate in my shooting workflow.

The tripod is my first really serious gear acquisition, Manfrotto MT055XPRO3 Aluminum 3 Section with a Manfrotto 327RC2 pistol grip ball head. I’m too-optimistic a hand-held shooter, and my tripod collection to date is decidedly flimsy (well, one exception, will discuss it in a bit), and these two pieces are decidedly Beefy. Not really travel equipment, but they ain’t moving when I need still… :smiley:

Here’s my old film kit:

Nikon F2 Photomic, procured in 1974, my second “real” camera, after a Minolta SRT-102 that served yeoman’s duty in high school, shooting for the yearbook and a bit for the paper. Lenses are, left-to-right, Nikkor 28mm f3.5, which ended up being my main lens, 50mm f1.4 NIKKOR-S Auto, which came with the camera, and 105mm f/2.5 Nikkor-P-C telephoto. Also pictured are the detachable flash shoe and a non-working Vivitar flash. The bag is a US military surplus small field pack, the precursor to the “fanny pack”. I actually keep this kit in a more modern Nikon bag, but that was only as of last year - for the previous 40 years, this kit resided in the green bag.

Edit: Oh, the filters. Particularly, the orange one on the left. That makes clouds pop from blue sky in monochrome. Friend of mine back in the '70s kept a red filter ‘glued’ to his Pentax for this purpose…

I plan to shoot some black-and-white with this kit, mainly to thwart the frustration we’ll encounter with this kit:

A “baby” Graphlex, 2"x3" film format. Above it are a 120 roll film back and an eyepiece for focusing on the ground glass. The bag is an LLBean nylon satchel that I just had lying around. The tripod is an old Star-D or some sort, originally procured along with a couple of view cameras.

The story behind this kit is this: Some years ago, I procured a couple of view cameras, a 4"x5" Speed Graphic and a 1903 Eastman No. 2 8"x10" (mahogany and leather, beautiful piece of furniture…) with the intent to exercise a dream from my youth of doing large format landscapes. That went nowhere, and I eventually sold both to a friend in Northern New Mexico who was resurrecting old equipment for similar uses. Later, in a railroad bulletin board he maintains I posted a few sentences about how my granddaugher Elizabeth was developing an interest in photography. All on his own, my friend boxed up this kit and mailed it to us, along with a developing tank and 5 rolls of film.

This camera is a challenge. Through-the-lens focusing is done by mounting a ground glass plate in place of the film pack and looking at the inverted image while racking the lens board back and forth. If that’s too onerous, the camera has a separate rangefinder, which I have yet to figure out. There are two shutters, one built into the lens, the other in the camera next to the film plane. I don’t want to frustrate the grandkid too much, so we’ll try a few exposures with the Graphlex, but we’ll also load and shoot with the Nikon…

These kit pictures were shot with our old Nikon D50 with 18-200mm zoom. We bought it to take pictures of kids, cheaper cameras would take their good time from button-press to shutter-open, so we got a lot of pictures of our floors. :smiley: This is the camera that drug me out of my photography hiatus, kicking and screaming into the world of digital. It sits under our living room couch now, available for short-notice family snapshooting, and kit photography…

More prose than picture, sorry for the long-winded treatise. But, there’s a story behind every bag…

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pics don’t work :frowning:

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