[LargeFormat] How do you transport lenses in the field?

[Paul and Paula Butzi]

> How do you carry lenses in the field -- attached to lensboards, in cases,
> with or without lenscaps, in some special gizmo, or how?

I've gone through several different arrangements.  When I started out all
my large format gear fitted into a large Pelican(tm) case with foam inserts.
A Pelican case is completely water/air/dust tight, and very heavy.  They will survive
anything short of a direct hit from a strategic nuclear weapon.  But they
are not well suited to hauling camera gear a mile and a half.

The next attempt was an f/64 backpack.  Better, but the harness was horrible
and the pack was really huge.  The f/64 backpack was replaced by a Domke
OutPack, which was slightly better in the harness department and smaller to 
boot.  Unfortunately the OutPack design made it hard to arrange stuff 
conveniently.

The OutPack was replaced by a LowePro OmniTrekker.  The OmniTrekker 
packed with all my LF gear fits *inside* the Pelican case that I started with
(with the now useless foam removed and discarded).  The OmniTrekker has
a removable harness (not a very good one) as well as a shoulder strap.
It's about 18"x14"x6".  Into it I fit a Linhof Technikardan, five lenses, two
wallets full of 67mm glass filters, a Pentax Digital spotmeter, a compendium
lens hood, the bag bellows for the TK45s, about 100 sheets of film in Readyloads,
a Readyload holder, and miscellaneous bits of stuff like rodenstock lens wrenches,
brushes, pens, labels, etc.  A complete description of the gear is at
http://www.butzi.net/reviews/lfkit.htm

I used the OmniTrekker for quite a while - several years or more.  One disadvantage
of it is that because there are no rain flaps over the zippers, rain can get through
the zip and to the stuff inside.  Even worse, in windy conditions (that is, virtually
all the time) on the beach, SAND can get through the zips.

Just recently I bought a Tenba PBL.  The harness is vastly superiour to the
OmniTrekker, all my gear still fits into it, and it's not much larger than the
OmniTrekker. It has both rain/dust flaps over the zips and a rain cover
that can be unfolded from the bottom pouch and used to cover the
pack completely.  It seems very well made but I'm still working out the
layout of the gear inside the pack.

The jury is still out on whether it will replace the OmniTrekker
permanently.

As for carrying lenses, all the lenses are in Linhof Technika style
lensboards, wear front and rear caps, and are carried with a short,
very flexible cable release permanently screwed into the shutter.

-Paul