Carrying system for multi-day Landscape photography treks?

Malpaisian

Hello All,

I am a landscape photographer and I like to hike out into remote places and wild camp over night, sometimes two nights. This means that I carry a backpack containing all of the stuff you need for 1-2 nights wild camping. Even though I have gone to great lengths to keep the weight of all of this to a minimum, it still ends up being a heavy load to carry on long hikes.

I carry all of my photographic gear in a kata sling pack style camera bag which I wear backwards, ie on my chest. The net result is that the combined weight of the camping and photographic stuff is not very evenly distributed and puts a lot of pressure on my lumber region. I also find that this arrangement makes my gear very awkward to access which is a pain in the ass as I usually shoot as I hike to my camp location.

Has anyone out there got any suggestions for lens and camera carrying solutions which would :
a) be compatible with also carrying a large backpack
b) Allow relative ease of access to equipment
c) waterproof

I've seen various belt, holster and harness type systems online but they all seem to be geared toward carrying your equipment "naked" with no cases or pouches etc to protect the equipment from dust and rain. What I need is some kind of modular system which allows me to attach waterproof and padded lens cases and one of those top-loading camera bags which accommodates just a camera with lens attached, all on the chest and around the waist. Anyone know of anything which might work?

Silva360

It seems the site won't let me post a link because I'm a new user, but if you type into google 'F-stop Satori-exp'.

It's very expensive, unless you have loads of moola, but it's what I'm hoping to get one day.....

denismc

I was in a similar position to you a couple of years ago, wild camping with a lot of camera gear. At the start i did what you did and carried a front mounted camera bag but i found it very unstable and dangerous on steep climbs. I looked at various designer camera/hiking backpack combinations but i couldn't see anything suitable.
In the end i bought a good quality rucksack and good quality lightweight camping equipment and i now have my backpack down to about 12kg all in. The camera sits on top of my rucksack in a dry bag. Not ideal but it works for me.
The only other thing i could suggest is to find a hiking partner to split some of the load.

almorris

Lowe Pro do loads of different modular systems. Maybe mix and match to get what you need? Say two lens on the hips and a top loader in harness on the front. As for waterproof, some of their gear has the pullout plastic baggies.

Malpaisian

Thanks for the suggestions guys.

Tiriel

almorris wrote: »

As for waterproof, some of their gear has the pullout plastic baggies.

Those plastic baggies aren't really great though - they're fine for a shower, but it wouldn't really do so well under proper rain, if it was over any real length of time.

I use a Lowe Pro slingshot (side loader) and I wouldn't recommend it for a day long type of hiking trip, as weight isn't distributed evenly. It is perfect though for city street photowalk type situations, where it is side opened and feels safe, with side access so you don't have to take the bag off your back to take something out. Great when you are conscious of security/being watched.

Myksyk

I've heard f-stop bags are some of the best for this.