Hard cases on a budget

[Gordon Coale]

I've mostly been a hard case kind of guy. 2maneekameras turned me on to these some time ago. The used to be called Train Cases. They are small traveling cases made by Samsonite and can be found at the finest thrift shops. I used to pay $5 for these. They may be higher now. I used to have just one but my photography kit keeps growing and so do the number of cases. These are particularly useful for medium format cameras. The cases are downstairs right now and I'm too lazy to go down and get the dimensions I forgot when I came upstairs. I'll get the dimensions tomorrow.

I started out with a single brown one for my Mamiya Universal. Then I bought a Super 23 that I flat topped. The Universal/Super 23 is a system camera and the different pieces kept multiplying. The brown case now houses the Universal body, a notebook, pano head, 6x9 back, a Vivitar 283, hand grip, assorted things like cable releases and batteries in the large cloth bag, and a light meter. I use pouches, mostly leather, for everything. That gives me a lot of flexibility to change things around.

Then I got the first green one. It now has the Super 23 body, 100mm lens, 65mm lens, pinhole, ground glass back, Polaroid back, dark cloth, Black Cat Exposure Guide, and assorted manuals.

 

[Gordon Coale]

The second green one I just got from my mom and I'm setting it up for the 3.25x4.25 Speed Graphic. It has a grip and film holders. It will eventually get some flashholders and flash bulbs. The first two are hard like fiberglass. The third one is a little softer.

If these aren't big enough or sturdy enough you might try surplus ammunition cases. I've got two that I've been carrying around for years. This afternoon I cut up a couple of blue plastic sleeping bag pads that I no longer use, and lined the ammunition cases. These cases are indestructable. The first one now has my Burke and James 5x7, 4x5 back, film holders, and loupe. The lenses will be in lens wraps. Scrap pieces made nice dividers. Keep it flexible. The second ammunition case houses my Lowel Tota-light, reflector, umbrella, cord, flashbulbs. There will be more flashholders in the future.

 

[Gordon Coale]

Here are the dimensions to the above cases. The Samsonite cases are 15" long, 8" deep, and 8 1/2" high. The ammunition cases are 17 1/4" long, 7 1/2" deep, and 14" high. Both are pretty indestructable. Of course, the ammunition cases are *really* indestructable. The ammunition cases have a really tight seal. The ammunition cases are also really heavy. They can be carried short distances without permanent physical damage but I plan to build a little hand truck, with large diameter wheels, for moving them around. Something I could take down a trail.

 

[Kin Lau]

Neat. I use a hard sided cooler bag from Walmart, the soft sided ones are just too crunchable for my rough handling.