When you become a photographer, you
realise you picked up one of the most
expensive hobbies imaginable.
And whether you turn this into a
profession or not, the cost
does not stop with your camera.
With every camera there comes lenses,
with every lens there comes filters.
Even your batteries, memory cards,
tripods and cleaning kits will set you
back a lot of money.
And most importantly, you need somewhere
to keep all this amazing kit.
We start shopping for camera bags like
same people looking
at the budget options.
But soon we remember, wait, I have a nice
camera, I want a nice camera bag.
So we start looking at the
best bags from the best brands,
following all the best advice on YouTube.
And then we see the price.
How much?
That's right mate, 400 quid for a bag.
The world of camera bags is littered with
overpriced and poorly made camera bags.
As well as premium, but extremely
expensive, premium brands.
And I should know, I've owned a few.
When you compare these bags with bags
that aren't camera bags,
of a similar capacity, the features you
get for a lot less money
and the build quality you get
for a lot less money starts to make the
whole world of camera
bags make zero sense.
Camera bags actually divide
people quite hard, I feel.
There's some of us who like to like
meticulously organize things.
We like to have dividers where we can put
lots of different bits of kit.
But then there's others who just want to
have a big sack to chuck everything in
and you can grab it out
as and when you need it.
And the companies designing specific
camera bags like this
are kind of the former.
They're the people who like to like
meticulously organize things.
So things are made with like really
premium materials,
which is obviously nice.
But at the same time,
like, it's only a camera.
I know they're expensive, but do we need
all this extra fancy stuff
that then costs like
a significant premium?
But whatever happens to just using a bag
like a proper standard bag
with some cute cameras like this, you can
just chuck it in a bin bag.
It's everything you need.
I want to take a minute to share with you
one of my favorite
videos on the internet.
This is from Paulie B's walkie talkie
series, and it is his interview in
Melissa O'Shaughnessy.
I always say that when I'm
feeling shy, I shoot with the 35.
And when I'm feeling less
shy, I shoot with the 28.
Once you start and you start to feel
comfortable and you start to see things,
and you get those first good picture, I
think people get really, really hooked.
That certainly happened to me.
And believe me, I carry
around a big bag of self-doubt.
Some days it's heavier than others.
It's many a hot day or cold day or
unproductive day, but I think to myself,
why am I doing this?
This is so hard.
It's so inefficient.
You know, you can be out for eight hours
and come back with nothing.
I think most street photographers are
driven by really a
profound sense of optimism.
And I think that's why we
all like each other so much.
Wait a second.
There's something we missed here.
And that big bag of self-doubt also has
another meaning here.
If you're carrying around just a camera
and a lens, that's a lot
easier for you and for your body
than carrying around a whole bag.
Sometimes with a laptop in there,
sometimes with another lens
in there, and any other kit.
It just makes your day harder.
It makes you maybe want
to go out for less time.
What if you need to take your Zoom with
you or maybe your ultra wide Zoom,
and maybe you might do a video.
So maybe you need to bring
a microphone kit with you.
What if you want to stop at a cafe for a
croissant and sit down with
your laptop to do some work?
What if you're just making excuses?
Excuses that just get in the way of you
actually taking photos.
If you head out with one camera, one
lens, be it a Zoom or a
Prime and nothing else on you,
the only thing you're going to do with
what you have attached to
your body or in your hand
is take photos.
And that's the most important thing.
Apart from my big camera bag that I use
for all my freelance work,
this is my go-to camera bag.
I've had this Berghaus
TrailBite 30 litre for four years now,
and there's absolutely
nothing wrong with it.
From using this bag,
I've realized something.
When you buy a bag from a
camera bag manufacturer,
typically that is the only bag that that
camera bag manufacturer will ever make.
Yes, there are some brands out there who
only make camera bags.
Some of them are quite good.
However, if you go
towards a brand like Berghaus,
or you could go to North Face, Patagonia,
Mountain Warehouse, the Outdoors brands,
they've been making other bags and
equipment that are
suitable for all kinds of outdoors
activities and they have to compete with
lots of other companies in that space.
And for me, the build quality of a bag
like this from a brand like Berghaus,
I'm not promoting
Berghaus or North Face or anyone,
but the build quality of
these bags is far superior,
even on a cheaper bag than
most camera bag manufacturers.
A problem that I think every photographer
comes to at some point is
whether or not you choose to
have like an obvious photography bag, a
bit like a low pro or
another well-known brand,
or you go with
something a bit more anonymous.
The benefit here is having a
photography well-known brand,
if you're somewhere where you're unsure
of how safe it is to
have lots of kit with you,
people might know that this is like a
high value bag potentially to steal.
Whereas when you have like an anonymous
bag like from any outdoors brand,
you kind of keep all of your kit nice and
incognito until you actually
pull it out and start using it.
Similar to how everything surrounding a
wedding costs significantly more,
everything associated with photography
costs significantly more.
This Berghaus bag for example, I think
cost me 50 to 60 pounds four years ago.
It's got a laptop sleeve,
multiple big compartments,
elastic cup holders for water bottles,
front zips and separate compartments
with high quality zips and materials.
Everything you expect from a premium
camera bag, but often they fall short.
For a short time, I had a 20 pound soft
camera insert from
Amazon stuffed in the bottom.
This was my setup to arrive at freelance
gigs for nearly a year,
but after a year or so of liking the
setup, I actually invested
in a Pete Design insert, yes,
from a premium camera bag company, but
not the full bag at this point.
And this setup when carrying in this bag
only allows me to fit a
small amount in this insert.
It can comfortably fit like an APS-C
sized camera or full frame camera
with one prime lens and a zoom lens, or
maybe two zoom lenses.
But often I'm carrying a second camera
because I have problems and I review
micro four thirds cameras.
And this little unit can just
sit at the bottom of my bag,
leaving me with most of the capacity of
that bag, free to be able
to stuff in other things
and even go to the shop on
my way home from a shoot.
And besides this non
camera bag, camera bag setup,
the only other thing I'm using these days
to carry around kit is this Uniqlo bag.
This is just like a
sling bag, super minimal.
There's like one pocket in here you can
put a camera battery in,
but it quite comfortably carries a Sony
a6700 with a pancake lens.
And you can even get another prime lens
in there or just take the
camera with one zoom lens
and it fits quite nicely.
And this is a nice halfway between just
carrying a camera on a sling
and taking a smaller non camera bag,
especially when I'm not going out for a
long time and I don't
need to carry water and
things like that with me.
Just taking this camera and this Uniqlo
bag has actually been a
dream for the last few months.
I think this turning point of going from
carrying as much as possible
to finding ways to carry as little as
possible is a point we all
come to as photographers.
If no of these ideas work for you and you
don't fancy getting
yourself an under 100 pound
premium bag from a brand like
Patagonia or the North Face,
you can always pick up
premium camera bags on eBay.
If you go to eBay, you can
find brands like Pete Design,
Low Pro and even some Peter McKinnon bags
for less than that RRP.
But you're never going to save as much as
if you just make your own camera bag
with another brand like Patagonia, North
Face or many other brands.
All jokes aside, I love all things
photography, including camera bags,
but there's nothing I love more in
photography than tiny lenses
in the shape of delicious pancakes.
And if you want to see a whole video
appreciating those
lenses, check out this one here.