My custom camera/laptop rolling gear bag

I posted about this project on the FlyerTalk.com forums recently, because someone was asking about modding their overnight bag, and some of the techniques I used were useful to him. But then I realized, I never shared this project with my friends on TheMagicInPixels.com or Dgrin.com, both of which are full of rabid, er, avid photographic enthusiasts who travel a lot. So here it is. I hope my little project can inspire others to find custom DIY solutions to their own equipment carrying dilemmas.

Chapter I: In which my ridiculously picky nature creates loads of work for me
I travel with a laptop and a lot of camera gear, and I've never liked carrying a camera bag AND laptop bag. I wanted a bag that would carry all my electronics stuff, carry-on size, but with rollers and a handle. But a decent bag with the features I wanted would cost me several hundred dollars, and even then, the possibility that they might not actually do what I wanted when I got one made me very hesitant to spend that money. So I decided to buy an empty bag of the proper size and create my own custom camera/laptop bag.

The basis for this project was a 22" American Tourister roller, which I bought at WalMart:


I chose this bag for several reasons:
1) It's cheap and readily available.
2) It's the max size allowed by most airlines for carry-ons.
3) It includes a laptop sleeve and separate zipped opening on the side,through which you can remove the laptop without opening the main compartment.
4) It has wheels and an extendable handle that is tall enough for me to pull comfortably, despite my 6'-4" height.
5) It's not a camera bag, it's just a suitcase - which means it doesn't have "STEAL ME!" written on it in big, red letters like Pellican or Lowepro or Tenba bags.

Once I had the bag, I modded the living cra... I mean, I extensively modded it to fit my specific needs.

First, I added two U-bolts to it to act as mounting points for a shoulder strap (for those times when I need to carry it instead of rolling it). I ; drilled through from the outside of the bag, fed the U-bolt ends through, and secured them in place with washers and locking nuts on both sides of the hole.

To make the U-bolt interface stronger, I drilled the holes through the wide plastic bar in the top of the bag which. This plastic bar is there to act as an anchor for the built-in carry handle, which is riveted through the bar. I figured that the plastic bar is strong enough to hold the weight of the bag when I pick it up by the handle, so it ought to be strong enough to hold the bag from a shoulder strap, too.


Later, I also added a couple of small web straps to the outside of the bag, to use for my phone, water bottle, or other small items that have belt clips. I used the same technique to attach them to the outside of the bag as I had with the U-bolts, except that I drilled through the plastic hard shell, and on the outside of the bag I used decorative finish washers to give the heads of the machine screws a neater, more pro-like finish.


And the coup de gras was when I bought a piece of 4" furniture-grade foam, cut out custom openings for my camera gear, and made an insert that filled the entire bag. My laptop fit into the bag through the bag's original side zip laptop compartment, which put it between the foam and the back of the bag where the handle retracts.


But that became a problem - the laptop was banging up against the metal handle while in the bag. Solution: I unzipped the liner and inserted a piece of 1" furniture-grade foam beneath it, insulating the laptop from the handle. The black lines I drew on the foam indicate where the handle is beneath it.


I used the bag in this configuration for several trips over two years, and it was perfect. I was ablt to roll it around airports and hotels easily, it fit in the airplane overhead bins perfectly, and it carried all of the equipment I need in safety and anonymity.

 

Chapter 2: In which I ditch the foam for something more refined

After about 2 years, I got a new camera (A Canon 50D), and a few other new odds and ends, and found that the foam insert just didn't cut the mustard any more. I could have made a new foam insert, but I wanted something more flexible, as befitting my constantly-changing equipment, moods, and attitudes. I decided to try my hand at creating customizable, Velcro-equipped, foam inserts for my bag, just like those found in a store-bought camera bag.

After a lot of research on the net (I had no idea how many people have created their own camera bag inserts), I settled on a basic design idea and began collecting materials. I bought a foam camping pad from WalMart, some cloth from Joann Fabrics, and some two-sided Velcro from Harbor Freight Tools. I already had thread, and I had bought a nice sewing machine for my camera harnesses about a year ago, so I was equipped with the tools and the materials to get the job done:


I started by cutting the foam mat to size for the bottom and sides of the bag and trying them out for size:


Then I use some scrap cloth to figure out the sizes I needed to cut to cover the various pieces. Once I knew the sizes I needed, I laid out the cloth, ironed it flat, and marked it off for cutting, using a template I printed up with the proper measurements:



The sides and all of the dividers would have two strips of Velcro along their lengths, and strips on the end tabs, so they could all fit together and be re-configured as my needs change. This is a common configuration of for store-bought camera bags. To get the Velcro on the sides, I sewed it onto the cut out cloth pieces while they were still flat:


Once the lengthwise Velcro was on, I folded each piece over with the Velcro on the inside, and sewed it to make a tube. The tube was then turned inside-out, bringing the Velcro outside:



Next, I slid the foam pads into the tubes. Because I had measures carefully and made a couple of prototypes out of scrap, the tubes fit perfecely, nice and tight around the pad, which made it necessary to bend the pad a little to slide it into the tube:



Once the foam was in the tubes, it was time to close up the ends. I folded the ends inside and pinned them, forming a nice, neat end piece, and sewed it together:



Once the ends were closed, I added a strip of Velcro to each of them. NOTE: on the sides, the loop (fuzzy part) of the Velcro is out, but on the ends, the hook (plastic part) is out, so they will stick together:



The bottom of the bag received a cloth cover, too, but this one was more like a pillow case that slides on and off easily. The only Velcro I put on the bottom piece was on the bottom surface, in an outline, so that the sides could be adhered to it with a few strips of loose Velcro:



And then I fit the pieces all together in a bench fit:


Since it all fit, I shoved, er, placed it carefully into the bag:


And filled it with my camera junk:



When packing it for travel, I top it off with a neoprene laptop sleeve. The sleeve doesn't have my laptop in it, though; it's there to act as an impact cushion:


The full set of pics of this project can be seen here:
http://www.willcad.org/photos/2011/2011-05-02/2011-05-02.html

I haven't used the new dividers during travel yet, but I'm looking forward to my upcoming Walt Disney World trip in October as a trial by fire.

 

You have a TON of patience! ; Looks great!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The dividers only took about a week to make, a little at a time.

 

Well, as I said, I haven't traveled with the new dividers yet, so I don't know if they will make a difference, but when I traveled with the old foam insert, TSA gave me no grief.

My laptop doesn't go into the neoprene sleeve, it goes into the space between the insert and the bottom of the bag, through the zippered side opening. I pull it out, sleeveless, and put it into a bin by itself. Again, no grief from TSA.

I'm hoping that these new dividers will not make any difference. After all, TSA is perfectly accustomed to seeing camera bags loaded with gear go through the x-ray, so the image should be pretty ordinary and cause no concerns. But I have heard horror stories on Flyertalk about TSOs pulling camera bags apart and doing ETD (explosive trace detection) swabs on each. Individual. Item. In. The. Ruddy. Bag! Not only that, but I once heard a story of a TSO who took all of the lens caps off os someone's lenses - both sides! - and ran his finger across the glass. Not swab - finger. Gloved, of course, but still, that's expensive glass and you don't want to finger it like a suspicious shampoo bottle.

Organization is key, I think, for two reasons. One, if your stuff is organized to look like camera gear, then the TSO manning the x-ray will recognize it as camera gear. And two, if your stuff does get pulled for inspection, having an organized system will allow you to repack it more easily on those shaky airport steel tables.

 

This looks great!!

Is this the bag you use then once at your destination or do you also take along a back pack?

 

Pshaw! I don't carry a camera bag on vacation! I use my camera harness with my camera, and I use an 18-200 lens, which has plenty of focal range for the kind of shooting I do, and a small pocket case for memory cards and batteries.

The only thing your camera can get a picture of when it's in a bag is the inside of the bag. Now, a camera bag is a fine place, but I have no burning desire to begin a collection of pictures illustrating them, so I keep my camera OUT and ready to use when I'm in a place full of photo ops.

 

I think I need to come up with a new version that allows dual carry - 1 kid down low+1 camera up high.

You could try it one on each side with the current camera harness, but it would be unbalanced.

Maybe kid in back, camera up front...

 

Guess I have not seen your harness. ; Going to be at Pixelmania so I could see it or do you have a pic?

 

Both. Here is the web page:
http://willcad.org/image_harness.shtml

And I'll be seeing you at PixelMania, as well.