{"id":7959,"date":"2013-04-01T17:56:07","date_gmt":"2013-04-01T17:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=7959"},"modified":"2013-04-01T18:41:28","modified_gmt":"2013-04-01T18:41:28","slug":"getting-it-off-your-shoulders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/?p=7959","title":{"rendered":"Getting it off your shoulders!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I promised to deal with waist belt systems so here we go.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

First a Disclaimer: \u00a0I have a personal policy of never recommending something unless I actually use it myself, and have bought the product with my own money. \u00a0This protects you from being convinced something is great just because some manufacturer gave me one!!!\u00a0 If you are a fan of; \u00a0Tenba, Clik, Tamrac, Kata, or many of the other bags out there this is not meant as a shot at your bow! \u00a0I just have never used any of those except Tenba and that was years a ago. \u00a0So I only report on Domke<\/span>, Lowepro<\/span>, and Think Tank<\/span>. \u00a0Those are the only brands I currently own or have owned for some time. \u00a0This would be an appropriate place to tell a quick story. \u00a0For many years I’ve been friends with George Lepp. \u00a0In the very early days of my interest in photography George was known as the “go-to-guy” about equipment reviews, and recommendations, \u00a0this was long, long before DP Review and other on line reviewers. \u00a0George not only gave excellent information he also was very unbiased. \u00a0He was a Canon shooter, and was supported by Canon, but that did not prevent him from praising the products from other camera companies. \u00a0Being a \u00a0Nikon shooter that always made me feel great, I knew what ever I read from George was fair and honest. Later when we met and ran some workshops together I found that was the kind of guy he was, he called it as he saw it. \u00a0I never thought that I would be doing reviews, but when I started I tried to follow the great example set by George. \u00a0Now that I am approaching retirement from Nikon, I very much want to be that kind of reviewer. \u00a0I will have the freedom to do just that when I am a free moral agent, and I hope I can be as fair and honest as George was!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One more important point, I’m not a pixel peeper, not that there’s anything wrong with that (ala Jerry Seinfeld!). \u00a0I want to do reviews that talk about how effective any product is at making better images in the field, not on a test bench! \u00a0Is the product made well, does it work the way it is supposed to work? \u00a0Is a camera capable of high quality imaging, are lenses sharp, and well made, does the camera bag hold the stuff you need, and is it user friendly!!?? \u00a0I hope come July that I can conduct these kinds of reviews here and be helpful to all of you, as we all make our buying decisions together! \u00a0Just always remember that I have no agenda here except to be honest and open in these mini reviews! \u00a0Should be fun and I expect to learn a lot myself!!!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

O.K. waist belts. \u00a0I only own one brand, Think Tank, and I am very satisfied with their products! \u00a0I’ve never worn out a Think tank product and I use them hard. \u00a0My Airport Security 2.0 has hundreds of thousands of air miles and airport terminal \u00a0miles and all I’ve ever done was replace the handle!!! \u00a0And they replaced that free of charge! \u00a0(In fairness I’ve never worn out a Lowepro or Domke product either!) \u00a0 \u00a0Think Tank stuff is very well made and designed, and extremely user friendly, the zippers work great, \u00a0the interiors are easy to customize for whatever lens, flash or accessory you want to have quick access to.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I own two belt systems, one for a smaller mirror-less camera system, and one for my DSLRs both for FX and DX. \u00a0Below is my heavy duty model for DSLRs and lenses. \u00a0The way I use this belt is a way to carry around three lenses in addition a camera and lens that is over my shoulder. \u00a0The pockets and cubbyholes \u00a0in the three pouches can hold extra batteries, cable release, cleaning supplies and other accessories. \u00a0The one below includes the think Tank Pro Speed Belt, a large Lens Drop In pouch, trim changer pouch, and speed changer pouch and a lens changer 75 (for 70-200 and similar size lenses) and a very handy Bum Bag, to hold all the little extras you need in the field.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

If I am going lighter, which I’m doing a lot more today my smaller Think Tank belt system will hold a full system of smaller Mirror-less gear. \u00a0With This belt I can carry one camera with a lens over my shoulder and have 4 or 5 additional lenses and accessories in the pouches. \u00a0It weighs less than half the big belt with lenses, quite nice when you have a lot of walking to do!! \u00a0The two extra pouches are for carrying a \u00a0flash or Constant Source LED lights which I’ve been experimenting with, more on that in a future blog post!! \u00a0The extra pouches are usually stored in the vehicle and not worn on the belt!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The bag in the very first image at the top is the Speed Racer fanny pack type bag that is great worn on the front and secured with a \u00a0shoulder strap for sitting in the open door of a helicopter, it keeps all your lenses within easy reach when shooting on such a precarious platform!!!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So there you have it, some more thoughts on \u00a0how to distribute the weight, keep your gear close, at hand, and work faster\u00a0and more effieciently! \u00a0Hope some of these ideas may work for you!!<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Blessings,<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

the pilgrim<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I promised to deal with waist belt systems so here we go.   First a Disclaimer: \u00a0I have a personal policy of never recommending something unless I actually use it myself, and have bought the product with my own money. \u00a0This protects you from being convinced something is great just because some manufacturer gave me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronicles","category-learning"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7959"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7965,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7959\/revisions\/7965"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/billfortney.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}