I'm coming late to this discussion, but I have a thing or two to
add. I've got a lot of gear and a lot of ways to carry it: three
large Lowepros, a huge Tamrac, three or four soft-sided coolers, a
Cabela's bag intended for fly fishing gear, three hard-sided cases
I bought on sale at Home Depot for $19.99 apiece and then lined
with that egg crate mattress stuff campers who sleep on the ground
use, plus an assortment of fanny packs and small bags of various
sorts. Enough about the bags already.
Because of a hitch in my git-along, the result of some leg
injuries long years ago, most of my photography is carried out in
fairly close proximity to the OM-4Runner. I'm okay for a mile or
so as long as there's a good reason to go, but more often than
not, I'm within a few hundred yards of the truck with all the
gear. And because of the ease of hauling and having lots of stuff
at hand, I sometimes take along a humongous amount of equipment.
Mostly, while out on these excursions, I photograph wildlife,
landscapes, old buildings, particularly barns and country stores,
falling-down houses, rusting farm machinery and automobiles, and
macro stuff. (Yeah, I take pictures of posies. So what?) This
calls for a wide variety of gear, and it's not unheard of for me
to leave home with five or six OM bodies, motor drives, 15-20
lenses, auto tube, bellows, three macro flash units, even a T45
and Quantum Turbo battery pack, F280 and a pair of T20s. Then
there?s the MF gear, which is usually three or more 6x9cm cameras
with 10 or 12 lenses, a half dozen 120 film backs, some sheet film
holders. Then there are exposure meters, tripods, even one bag
filled with nothing but filters and lens hoods.
And that's not all, but I think I've made the point. As a
conservative estimate, I'm sure there are times I?m driving around
with more than $25,000 worth of gear. Being usually armed and
always ornery, I don't worry a bit about the stuff being stolen
when I'm around. But then again, I don't worry much about it
being stolen even when I'm out of sight and busy wasting film, and
here's why:
If you have larceny on your mind and you see the old OM-4Runner by
the side of the road with nobody around and you decide to
investigate to see if there's maybe something inside you might
like to have, you are going to be sorely disappointed. The back
windows are heavily tinted, so you won't see much of anything
except some cardboard boxes that look like they are full of old
clothes. In the back seat, you'll see a big, old, pink plastic
laundry basket full of dirty clothes, topped by a ragged and
filthy, faded old quilt. Next to the laundry basket is a
big "Tampax" carton also with dirty and disgusting old clothes
hanging out. In the front, on the passenger seat, there's a
Domino's pizza box, and in the floor there are a couple of fast
food sacks full of God knows what. On the dash is a half roll of
toilet tissue.
It doesn't take a lot of gray matter to come to the conclusion
that this vehicle probably belongs to some poor schmuck whose wife
kicked him out in the middle of the night and he's now living out
of his truck, and he's probably just out in the woods taking a
leak or something and will be right back. Besides, who would want
to touch any of this disgusting crap, much less steal it?
Of course, the boxes are full of camera bags. The laundry basket
holds two Lowepro Magnum bags. The crappy old quilt is what I put
between myself and the ground when I'm shooting the posies. The
pizza box in the front passenger seat has a Dell laptop computer
and GPS receiver inside. The fast food bags -- well, they're for
real. A man's got to eat when he's out wandering around the
countryside. I just don't throw them away until I get home. And
the toilet tissue on the dash? Well, there's no harm in being
prepared, plus I think it adds a really nice finishing touch to
the entire ensemble. :-)
Walt, retired and wandering the countryside more and more.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"A human being has a natural desire to have more of a good thing
than he needs." -- Mark Twain (defining the cause of Zuikoholism a
century ago)
The olympus mailinglist olympus@xxxxxxxxxx
To unsubscribe: mailto:olympus-request@xxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe
To contact the list admins: mailto:olympusadmins@xxxxxxxxxx?subject="Olympus
List Problem"
|