Bag Security - The chair folly

I read the other day that a pro photographer blogger had his camera gear stolen. Safely stashed under his chair, it was swiped from beneath him while he ate.

This happened to me many years ago, although my bag wasn't even under my chair, it was on the floor under my legs in my line of sight!

NEVER EVER leave a bag on the floor without lifting a chair leg over the strap or hooking it onto your leg. A practised thief can get a bag from under a chair or table, even as in my case, when you've got about ten friends sitting around you (although the thief wasn't caught, we did know who it was; not one of my friends).

I wouldn't be surprised if really technical thieves could cut straps from under chairs, which is why I always hook the strap over my leg so that I'd very probably feel it go.

The other solution? One of these. Like hooking it around your chairleg, Pacsafe don't make your stuff un-stealable, they just make it a no-brainer for the thief to go and steal something easier.

Like the old adage: If a bear chases us I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you. A basic premise of security.

Intro and Thinktank Modulus kit

So, welcome to the 'blog. I'm a photographer so many of the bags featured here will be photography related. Over the coming weeks I'm going to try to update once a week with articles on ThinkTank gear, Pelican cases, Lowepro gear, Timbuk2 laptop messenger bags, Waterfield pouches, Eastpak courier bags and other bits'n'bobs. If enough people read it then I'll keep writing it !

I'm going to start with not so much a bag, more a "carrying solution" as Lowepro would have you believe*.

It's the Thinktank Modulus belt kit. I've met too many photographers with bad backs, so when Doug Murdoch left Lowepro to set up Thinktank with a few other photo and bag luminaries a couple of years ago, I took up their "Test Drive" program. It basically was an innovative marketing strategy whereby they'd send you their kit and if you didn't like it you could send it back. Needless to say, I loved my first set of Thinktank kit; a Speed Demon beltpack and a "Whip-it-out" holster for the 70-200 (Canon or Nikon).

Here's a photo of me using it at the 2006 World Mountain Bike Championships.

Photo credit John Cowpland

It's worth mentioning here that this kit has a very narrow focus; that of photojournalists, hard news photographers and sports photographers. Trust me, you look really silly when you walk up to someone's house to take their portrait wearing these huge pouches on your waist. Similarly in some cases, you don't want to advertise you're a photographer and BINGO, huge pouches full of lenses kind of give the game away (I'll explain how I get around that later).


I use it for some hard news photography that I do; running around to hotspots in the city, be they fires or crime or car crashes. When speed is of the essence and it's obvious you're a photographer, Thinktank Modulus kit can't be beaten. As you can see above, I keep my CP-E2 AA battery pack in a Crumpler pouch. I don't really like Crumpler bags much, but their John Thursday 90 pouch is absolutely perfect for the Canon battery packs.


The Thinktank kit is supremely well thought out. Designed specifically for a 70-200 f2.8 the "Whip-it-out", doesn't have a lid but holds your lens in place with a rubbery section a bit like a softer version of skate board grip tape. When you zip it up, it tightens around the lens and holds it in place when you're running around. Unzip it and you can pull the lens out in a moment. Think of it like a quick-release pistol holster for your lens and you'll be close, although I hate military analogies for camera equipment. The only drawback? Canon users like me have to take off the 70-200's tripod ring although Nikon users don't. As you can see, I don't use a 70-200 lens shade. I've never had lens flare using it and leaving the lens shade off makes it the camera's 'footprint' a lot smaller when it's swinging from your neck or shoulder.

The other lens pouches simply rely on a toggle and elastic to hold the lenses in place. When I got mine they were a bit of a fiddle, requiring two hands to get the lenses in and out. I unpicked the plastic toggle and re-threaded them so that the toggle was then captive. Now I can tighten and loosen them with one hand and I've yet to have a lens fall out.


I wear the main Speed Changer component in front over my belt buckle. Inside I keep a spare battery for my Mark II N, a 1.4 converter, the tripod ring from my 70-200, an off-camera cord (note: one of the most under-mentioned but extremely useful things you can own), a little Olympus sound recorder, a notebook for caption information and notes, pens, lip balm, sun cream (I live in a VERY sunny country), ear plugs (never know when you're going to shoot motorsport or a loud concert), lens cloths and a AAA Maglite. I nearly forgot a Pixel Pocket Rocket, another great TT product for holding your memory cards.


The only drawback I've found with the Modulus system is that unlike a good camera bag, whenever you carry it, even slung over your shoulder, it's very VERY obvious what it is. Particularly since you can't put your camera into it. TT do make a pouch or two that will fit a camera, but I've got a 32" waist, so where that would go I have no idea. Perhaps I should eat more fast food. Or some fast food. Yeuch. I've found a way to solve it but that'll come later. I'll leave you with the setup that greets me when I go to work.. minus my camera of course.


*for an explanation of that you'll have to wait for the Lowepro article.