I want to get better at photography, but to do that I need to actually carry around a Camera with me. Currently I have a Point and Shoot camera that is a little pocket sized camera it is a Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS. Solid camera for a quick photography, and the camera I used to take all these pictures.
Lets be honest I would love to have a DSLR, but I don’t have the money. The cheapest I can find, of the ones I want, is $400 which is the Nikon D40. However, my dad does have an SLR he got back in the day. It is the Minolta X-700. Solid camera and a good learning tool, but it is film so there is some extra expense developing the film. Though in order to get better I need to start somewhere so I am going to start here.
The Problem
So why am I posting today? Well the problem is my dad has his camera in a metal case that used to be really popular to have, by the way he doesn’t use it much anymore. Having the camera in the case while I am walking about day-to-day isn’t exactly conducive to photography as it is bulky and HEAVY. Here are a couple of pictures.
So I set out to look for some DSLR camera bags that might be a good fit for this film SLR too. Not so much luck I am afraid, and the cheapest bag I found was $35, that I could touch. Don’t exactly have $35 bucks for a camera bag that isn’t going to work well with the current SLR I am using. So being that our family tends to like making due, and creating stuff I set out to make my own camera bag.
The Goals
What I want to make is a camera bag that uses mostly existing things I have, and also doesn’t look like a camera bag so I am able to carry around the bag without to much worry of someone swippng it.
The Solution
So first thing I needed was some foam rubber so I hit my local Army surplus and they hooked me up with some some. I got a 4″ and a 2″ thick 8×8 inch blocks of foam rubber. Total cost was $3.52. Awesome price.
Full digital zoom so a bit hazy.
Since I am a programmer using Microsoft technologies I tend to go to a lot of Microsofts free events in the area. Well I just happened to get Vista Ultimate free and this awesome lunch pale box thing.
Here is the concept of what I am after with it.
First and most important is getting the camera in there and snug. So I took out a trusty razor blade and got cutting.
At first I wanted to go almost all they way through with the circle cut out, but that turned out to be a bit problematic so I went ahead and cut all the way through. And in the bag I just put a piece of foam rubber in the bottom to allow even more cushion beyond the bag itself. Here it is all cut out for the camera. It isn’t so pretty but is functional.
In case you are curios what I used to do the cutting with I used for the more complicated parts a razor blad as above, but for the other areas I used an electric turkey cutter. Its like cutting butter 
.
For the next part it was the flash, and believe it or not was posing to be more problematic than the camera itself because of space issues. So I took a shortcut and did some massive big cuts and didn’t worry about a perfect form fit. Also just took the razor and carved out some space the extra film. Here is a picture of it done.
So the next problem to solve was protecting the top. For that I just cut a the 2″ thick foam in half to 1″ thick then trimmed as needed.
And here are the final pictures of how it looks.
Notice the final one with it all closed up it still looks like it did in the beginning. Now, however, there is a camera flash and extra film, all protected with some good solid squishy foam rubber. Again all I put out money wise was gas over to army surplus and $3.52 for the foam rubber. However, these bags are anywhere from $5 to $15 so you can buy them cheaply. Notice also I still have another level I could later put more equipment in. Lots of possibilities and for cheap.
So what do you think? and have you done things like this?
Note: I don’t normally post on photography, but since I want to take more pictures for this blog I am wanting to get better at it and I would like to chronicle how I get there.
That's pretty interesting! I bet you could have lined it with material that velcro would stick to, and then made those nylon panels with velcro ends too, just like real camera bags have, so that the bag was customizable .
That is an interesting idea. I have a couple of thoughts of how to improve that could actually work with a couple of them. Thanks for the idea.
I'm slightly worried about the camera placement though. How you have in it the foam means that all of the weight goes onto the delicate lens. Plus there didn't appear to be any foam between the lens and the bottom on the bag, so if you drop the bag or put it down on something iffy… then the lens is in danger.
Personally I'd suggest having the camera lay more like it did in your dad's case with foam on the bottom as well.
Lucky you with the fancy camera. I’m saving up to buy a new camera (and the underwater gear to go with it), but man does that get expensive fast.
heh it is about a 20 year old or more, maybe even 30 at this point, camera. Though i am selling a bunch of stuff to buy me a new DLSR, no underwater for me though. I can see that getting underwater stuff can get expensive. Heck it just sounds expensive.