Matty Graham

When is a camera bag, not a camera bag?

We all buy camera bags to carry our photographic equipment, but did you know they can also be used for other applications. Photography writer Matty Graham explains five ways you can use your Naneu bag for something other than holding cameras.

Ballast support - Picture the scene: you’re up at the crack of dawn, in the wilderness of the great outdoors to capture a perfect sunrise. There’s one problem – a strong wind is blowing and even though your camera is on a tripod, the blustery gale will move the camera enough to cause shake and blur in your image. The solution? Use your camera bag as ballast and hang it on the tripod (preferably from the centre column) to weigh it down. The ballast will keep the tripod steady and help to eliminate blur from your images.

Makeshift tripod – There will be situations when you’re shooting on location without a tripod and find yourself in real need of a stable support. At times like this, your camera bag can serve as a replacement tripod and balancing your DSLR on a big, sturdy backpack like the Adventure K3L would allow the photographer to set the camera to self-timer mode for a group shot - racing around to join your friends and appear in the image. Also, the low shooting position would also suit wildlife environments where the photographer has to keep as low to the ground as possible to avoid disturbing or spooking potential subjects.

Accessory bags – Camera bags aren’t limited to carrying bodies and lenses and if you’ve got a lot of specialist equipment, you can customize the interior of your bag to accommodate gear such as audio kit for photojournalists (microphones, hard discs etc) right up to studioflash heads and cables.

Airport companion – Unless you like your camera kit thrown about and your lenses smashed, checking in your camera kit when traveling is quite a mistake. However, stuffing numerous lenses, bodies and flashguns into a regular bag along with your other items is not the best way to travel. The answer to avoiding airport chaos is to get your hands on a bag like the Urban Gear U220N (http://www.naneubags.com/products-by-series/urban-gear/u220n). Not only will this bag hold a vast amount of photo kit, you can also store personal items AND there’s room for a 17inch laptop. You can carry it on to an aircraft and, the icing on the cake, the bag can be used as rolling luggage so you can wheel it through security when you land at your destination.

Belt-up – Camera bags don’t always have to carried on your bag. In fact, more and more photographers are experiencing new found freedom by using modular systems. These are bags or pouches that hold cameras/ lenses and are carried on a belt around your waist, rather than over the shoulders. Naneu’s Correspondent series (http://www.naneubags.com/products-by-series/correspondent) is a perfect of this modern storage solution and there are range of belt-attachable bags in various sizes. If you’re a sports shooter, or filming HD video, then you really should check this range out as the smaller, waist-level bags will allow to move around faster and access your kit more quickly.