From Man Bag to Camera Bag

Camera bags are expensive. Really expensive. And worst of all, they all look like camera bags unless you’re willing to pay a premium for a good looking bag, on top of the premium that you’re already paying for padding. That said, I’m really really happy with my Lowepro Slingshot 200 AW, with it’s easy access, sling-around, hold-everything-I-have goodness. It’s ace for if I’m out and about and being a tourist, but it’s a bit rubbish if I want something that looks anything less than a back-sized fannypack. So I wondered what it would take to come up with something myself.

I’ve got a number of bags that I like, but I wouldn’t want to chuck a camera in them without some sort of protection. Inside a bag, if not held in place, lens caps can come off and lenses can get scratched, and things get rearranged so that it becomes difficult to find what you’re looking for. And that’s not to mention all the casual bumps that a bag will inevitably get when worn and on the move.

Both Billingham and Domke make stand-alone inserts for their really rather lovely but sadly aspirationally priced bags, for around £30-40. There’s something in me that finds spending that amount on the padding alone a bit too much. Driven by this, and inspired by a number of DIY camera bag blog posts from people who have attempted a similar thing, I took a trip to the rather excellent Cass Art in Islington to see what I could find to help me. I left with a couple of 50cmx50cm neoprene foam sheets (£4 each) and a 2.5m pack of self-adhesive velcro (£7).

Back home, I got a small-ish bag – at least big enough for a digital SLR an a lens, but not much more. A nice sized man bag, effectively. My aim was to create an adaptable design for an insert that would create enough room for my SLR with a standard zoom lens attached, and whatever extra room I could make. After measuring approximate sizes, I made a rough template for an open-ended boxed rectangle, and cut out panels from the neopreme foam. I then attached them to each other with duck tape (I already had this) and used extra to create flaps to which I attached two lengths of velcro (comb-side). Two strips of the fuzzy side of velcro were added to the other panel, so I ended up with something looking a bit like this:

I’ve intentionally not mentioned any measurements here, since it’s very much dependant on the bag, although I found that a depth of around 10cm would be enough for an SLR. Dividers can be made in a similar way. A velcro-flanked square of foam can be strengthed with wire-reinforced cardboard strips. I inserted thickish garden wire into the cardboard’s corrogated ‘pipes’ before attaching the strips to the foam with more duct tape. This provides more vertical strength to the divider to support the weight of an SLR with a lens attached.

The following is the end result, shown from the top:

And from the front…:

I managed an insert and divider from a single sheet of foam, about 60cm of velcro tape, and a bit of duck tape, so total the cost is about £7. I’m now thinking that my Freitag bag will be getting a similar treatment shortly.