The Limbo Connection's photos with the keyword: bag

There's a picture in here trying to get out.

No more heroes any more.

Nikon D3s + Nikkor 70-300mm VR lens.

The corduroy bag is not original equipment. Nikon D3s + Nikkor 35-70mm f/2.8 AF lens at 70mm. 1/125th; f/4; ISO 900.

For years the Nikkor-H 50mm f/2 lens was what you got with your new Nikon or Nikkormat camera. It was engineered to standards unimaginable today. Optically it is as good at f/2 as at any other aperture. It was pretty much unrivalled by any other standard prime lens during its period in production.

An old Billingham 225 camera bag, very dirty and neglected when bought, and given a scrub with soap and water, followed by application of boot polish and Brasso as appropriate. I admire Billingham bags for their craftsmanship, gear protection, weather proofing, and durability. I have owned several different models. But I have not enjoyed using them, with the possible exception of the Hadley. They are heavy and not the best for access. Plus, they are expensive, as you might expect from the materials used and the impeccable construction. Photographed with a Nikon D90 and AF-S DX Nikkor 35mm f/1.8G lens.

Photographed using a Nikon D90 + AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D lens.

Close up shot with a Factory AI’d Nikkor-O.C Auto f/2 35mm lens on a Nikon D2Xs, where the field of view is akin to a standard 50mm lens on a full frame camera. The 35mm Nikkor-O.C Auto f/2 is a decent lens. According to Thomas Pindelski "This lens is fully the equal of any Leitz or Leica 35mm Summicron on a Leica M, regarded by many as the standard at this focal length". This is praise indeed, since Leica’s reputation as a company is almost entirely based on its 35mm Summicron for the Leica M rangefinder. It is quite hard to find the Nikkor-O 35mm f/2 on the secondhand market. Mine was manufactured around 1973. Thomas Pindelski has an interesting and useful site; if your appetite is whetted this is the page about the Nikkor-O.C which made the picture above: pindelski.org/Photography/2012/05/05/nikkor-o-35mm-f2-lens

Everything manual, including the lens, a Nikkor-O.C 35mm f/2 on a Nikon D300s. The bag is a Billingham Hadley Original.

The subject is the Korean-made, Domke-inspired, David Bailey-endorsed canvas camera bag. I photographed it with a 50mm lens on a Nikon D700. This sort of subject is the natural home territory of the 50mm. I have owned this bag for several years, having bought it on eBay for £25. I have never seen another like it, which is surprising considering that David Bailey's initials are embroidered into the fabric at the front. Maybe the bag only ever appealed to photographers whose initials were also 'DB'. The design owes a lot to the Domke F-2 bag although there are a few differences in detail, such as an all-round zip in addition to the dog-clip hardware. However, the Domke canvas is soft cotton, whereas the fabric of the David Bailey version is slightly thinner and resolutely synthetic.

Nikon D300s + Tokina SD 50-135mm f/2.8 DX AT-X Pro lens.

Billingham 550 Khaki-Tan camera bag as foreground interest. The Billingham 550 camera bag was introduced in 1983 as a reworking of the 1979 System 1 bag, the first soft camera bag manufactured in Britain. It has remained in continuous production. It is a bag much favoured by professional photographers. The bag is made of canvas and leather, and internally there is nylon covered padding. It is spacious enough to hold at least two camera bodies with a full load of lenses and other accessories. Doing that would, of course, be a mistake. You would end up with an over-stuffed bag which was too heavy to carry and too full to find what you wanted. The bag alone weighs over two and a half kilos. It’s a specialised, well-made and stylish piece of luggage. You can attach additional pockets at either end. I prefer to leave my pair at home. They make the bag look too long. One reason professional photographers like it is its internal height of 10 inches which allows tall lenses and hammerhead flashguns to be stowed upright. Another reason might be the fairly slim profile compared, for example, to a box-like Billingham 555, or indeed any of the Billingham five series which tend to hang from the shoulder four-square like wooden cabinets (and they’ll always do this if they’re filled to capacity). Many camera bags are built square and get in everybody’s way. The 550 will get in everybody’s way anyhow, despite not being square. It’s just generally big. Access is a bit awkward but in my experience that is a general criticism of Billingham bags and a concomitant of high standards of gear-protection. To carry it by hand you have to do up the straps which secure the cover to the bag, which is a nuisance. The only other criticism is the price. Mine is second-hand, with plenty of wear left in it, yet it cost more than many new bags. If you want a real fright, look up the cost of a new one. Don’t confuse it with the 555. Google ‘Billingham 550’. Be sure you’re sitting down when you do this. The photograph was made using some quite cheap second-hand kit: an AF Zoom-Nikkor 28-80mm f/3.3-5.6G lens on a Nikon D50.

Photographed with a Sigma 15-30mm F3.5-4.5 EX DG Aspherical DF lens on a Nikon D2Xs. Optically, the lens is capable, although suffering from flare if pointed towards a source of light. It is versatile too, being compatible with full frame Nikon cameras as well as APS-C format. But it is a big lens occupying a lot of bag space, and although well-built and in Sigma's professional range, I did not think it was the sweetest lens to handle.

Nikon D700 with a Nikkor 180mm AF ED f/2.8 lens on a Tamron MC-4 1.4x teleconverter. The focal length of the lens was thus extended to 252mm.

Nikon D700 + Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 AI lens.

This is a detail of a Safrotto canvas camera bag. These bags are made in China and sold extensively in the U.S. market. They seem a good deal less common in the U.K. Safrotto bags - at least this one - are very similar to Domke camera bags. Perhaps Safrotto bought the rights to the Domke designs. Jim Domke created the original bag bearing his name which was so popular that he founded a company in the U.S. to produce them. That was in 1976. In 1990 he sold his company to a firm called Saunders. Saunders sold the operation to a big American photographic company called Tiffen in 1999. However, Tiffen went bankrupt in 2003, and Topspin bought their assets, including Domke bags. The company continues trading under new ownership, but this is yet another example of the name surviving for marketing purposes. On the web you can find customers' complaints about the deterioration in the quality of Domke camera bags in recent years. They claim that the canvas is thinner and that some of the fittings are now plastic. Some comment that the Safrotto lookalikes are made using better materials, and with small design improvements, at a cheaper price. If they are to be believed, the Safrotto bags are more like Jim Domke's original than the current offerings from Tiffen. I don't know if this is the case. I bought this bag to see if Safrotto products were decent, and because it was blue, and because it was a secondhand bargain. The bag seems reasonable; not built like a Billingham bag, but many times cheaper new or used. The velcro dividers are a disappointment but better than nothing. I don't yet know how it holds up in the wet, nor how it wears. Domke bags have straps which often wear badly, so that might be a weak point. If you need a camera bag, and you like blue denim jeans that are faded with much wear and laundering, and you favour simplicity in design, you might very well enjoy using a bag like this one.