New Bags In Stock

It has been a morning. Two giant boxes full of Billingham bags have arrived and I have been plastering on the price stickers. As soon as they are bar coded they should be good to go - and Billingham are one of the best of all bags for going.

I've harped on the lightness and convenience thing before - Billingham meets these requirements easily, as well as being good enough looking to pass for a fashion bag - if you are fashionable. They can be small enough for mirror-less cameras or big enough for full DSLR systems and are designed to be reconfigurable whenever you need to shift to a different load of gear.

Best of all, they are a long-term investment. They have leather trim and brass attachments and heavy twill straps so that they age well. You might change your camera or lenses...and you do...but you need never change your Billingham.

Steal Me - I'm Worth It

Look at the heading image. Now close your eyes and tell me what you saw.

You saw a $ 50 bill, didn't you? And a cup of hot chocolate, perhaps...but you did see the $ 50 bill.

People are like that. We focus on what we want, whenever we see it. This is the principle that sells the Louis Vuitton bag and the low cut blouse. It drives the new camera sales whenever the manufacturers release a new compact camera - they flood the market with superb photos of the product. The cynics amongst us in the trade then take bets on which 4 x 5 or 8 x 10 studio monorail was used to illustrate it...

Back to the heading image. Did you see the black jumper draped over the bag? It cost the owner $ 7.00 apparently. A cold wind blowing on the way to work or home and that is the most valuable object in the picture.

No food for a day? Blood sugar level at nothing? There's a cup of hot chocolate there...

Somebody ringing on the phone and you need to write down the phone number before you lose it? Pads and pens are cheap things but they become invaluable in 10 seconds.

So what's the blue bit you missed? A Think Tank Retrospective 5 camera bag. You'd never know that it contains a camera, flash, and spare lens worth about $ 10,000. Neither will the bag snatchers or pickpockets. Keep it strapped over your shoulder and it just looks like a tatty old student bag.

It is padded inside, has a general utility pocket, has a rain coat included, and looks like a tatty old student bag. The webbing straps and buckles are military grade and it look like the ones on tatty old student bags.

If you too, contrive to look like a tatty old student bag, you might get busted but you won't get mugged. And your $ 10,000 camera kit is safe.

Doin' The Numbers - You Can Too

Went on holiday in Europe in 1973. Went on holiday in Europe in 1995. Went on holiday in Melbourne in 2013. Took 1000 pictures each time. Here's the numbers - see if you think the world has got better...

1973. S/H Leica M2 - 50mm f:2.8 Elmar, S/H 35mm f:3.5 Something Leica with spectacles, S/H 90mm Elmar f:4 collapsible. Agfa CT 18 50 ISO. Billingham bag. Slides still exist - yellow dye has disappeared from them so they are magenta monsters...

1995. S/H Nikon F3, S/H 50mm f.1.4 Nikkor, S/H 16mm F:4 Nikkor, New 85mm f:2 Nikkor. Kodak Kodachrome 200 ISO. Lowepro bag. Slides still exist  - colours fast.

2013. New Fuji X-10, 28-112 f:2 Fujinon. Crumpler bag. Jpeg images on Drobo at home.

Several ponts of interest here - the business of buying and using secondhand photographic equipment IS PERFECTLY ALRIGHT. I emphasise that because occasionally we get people who are so fastidious as to reject perfectly good gear because someone else has used it before. This can be a personal thing or a cultural thing or just a thing - but you might be missing out on some wonderful opportunities for shooting. The 35 in 1973 and the 16 in 1995 were lifesavers for the types of images I take. I couldn't have got them new, but they worked just fine secondhand.

Secondly - don't sit there and agonise over the money costs. Real photographers, as opposed to the dillettanti, spend what they need to spend to get what they want to do done. I spent money to get 1000 pictures of Europe or Melbourne and that was well spent.

Thirdly. The weight. I weighed 75 Kg in 1973 and 1995. I weigh 69 Kg now. You can ask me how I lost the 6 Kg but be warned - I'll show you the scars...The real weight question is the gear weight that I carried around:

1973 - 3460 grammes

1995 - 3520 grammes

2013 - 1080 grammes

Fourthly. The X-rays and inspections. Went through 9 airports on the European journeys; the 1973 ones had little or no X-ray inspection - the 1995 had a lot of it. The domestic Australian inspection is a breeze and if you look interesting they'll also swab you for explosives and pat you down. I was clean, but i went back for seconds because the lady who did it had warm hands...

But what about hauling film through the rays, versus memory cards. Wouldn't like to do the film, the cards seem to be immune.

Fifthly. Processing. Two weeks after I returned from Europe I had 1000 slides in boxes ready for projection. Twenty minutes after I returned from Melbourne I had 1000 images in the Drobo and had emailed the good ones to my mates.

Sixthly. When was the picture taken? I can see the sequence of slides by looking at the edge of the film, but if I wanted to have a time and date I needed to keep a paper notebook. THAT lasted about one day, I can tell you...

So - You can do the figures yourself, but you can see why I am smiling. I now shoot with a third of the carriage weight with a wider range of focal lengths, and a choice of colour or monochrome renditions at my fingertips - even " mid-roll ". One filter only. You can X ray me until my buttons melt and the pictures will be unaffected. No lens changing. As many copies of my work as I like for free and I can make them myself with a cup of coffee in hand. Plus there is a record with each shot of what date and when it was taken - and this information isn't burnt into the open face of the image in yellow letters.

And finally - an on-board flash that lets me do selfies in restaurants. You can't do that with the big flashes on film cameras. Well, actually, you can, but they throw you out of the restaurant after one shot...

Jemima Is Waiting Here For You

Would the little person who forgot Jemima Puddleduck here in the shop - near the camera bag section - please return and take her home. She has seen all the cameras and lenses and bags and is getting rather bored by it all. She needs go home where she is loved.

Please ask your little person if Jemima is missing and give us a call.

Photography And the Sense of Smell

Of all the seven senses - sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch, cinnamon buns, and road rage, the one that least suggests itself as connected to photography must be that of smell. Yet it has played a crucial part in many a photographer's career and needs to be nurtured if any future success is contemplated.

The smell of ether is distinctive and once formed a large part of the universe of the professional photographer. Gun cotton was dissolved in it to produce collodion - a sticky glue that was poured over glass plates and then soaked in silver nitrate to produce wet plates for large-format photography. How many early workers anaesthetised themselves preparing the collodion - or blew themselves up seeing where that funny smell came from with a candle in the darkroom...?

Then again when the flexible film camera came into being -and later the motion picture film - the first films had an acetate base. Fine in the initial stage but prone to breaking down chemically later to form flammable and explosive compounds. A distinctive smell coming from an old 35mm reel of motion picture film should serve as a warning.

Sniff some more. Is there a musty odour associated with your camera or the lenses in your old camera bag? Is the bag itself redolent of old socks? Or cheese? You may well be growing a fine crop of mould in your equipment. You'll need some fresh air, bright sunlight, and professional cleaning to return it from the grave - and no fair trying to trade it in to us, either. We've got noses too and we prefer our fungus sliced and fried over a steak.

The odour of a Soviet camera is also one that will never be forgotten - the Fed, Zorki, Kiev, Krasnoyarsk, Quarz, and many other products of the old empire were issued in real leather cases - presumably from pigskin in many cases - and in many instances pretty fresh from the tanning vat, if the smell was anything to go by. They were lubricated with fish oil. If you used a new one you didn't need Vitamin D tablets for a year - you just breathed deeply.

Is there a distinctive digital smell? Not really - most of the lubricants are artificial and while you might get a new camera smell, it is generally very subdued. It might be worth while for the manufacturers to enclose a scent sachet in the boxes - freshly-brewed coffee or garlic prawns or something to make you feel you have something to look forward to besides reading another manual and getting a firmware upgrade.

Plea For Mercy - Come Buy A Billingham Bag

It would appear that the English summer has yielded a bumper crop of Billingham bags. This has resulted in the delivery of 3.5 metric tonnes of them to the shop. Please see the heading image.

This will be gladsome news for the users of the Leica, Fuji, and Olympus system cameras - Billingham bags are ideally suited for the traveller or professional who has decided to do it with the slimmer cameras but still needs the best of housing for them.

Billingham bags are grown on the south slopes of Heath in the West Midlands. Each bag is lovingly nurtured on the stalk and picked only when ripe. This results in the full flavour of the canvas, leather, and brass coming though in the finished product. These are bags with a proud history - remember that English bag makers were equipping the British Army during the Napoleonic wars with much the same care - if it was good enough for the Duke of Wellington, it should be good enough for you...

Apart from the history, the bags are a practical answer to an elegant camera carriage - if you have ever struggled through an airport with the average camera bag banging and pulling at you as you struggle with the cardboard suitcase and crate of chickens, you'll know how bad it can be. Remember as well, that every bit of weight is charged for these days when you fly, and a lighter bag means a heavier purse.

Oh enough of the flannel. We're dying here under the weight of stock so please come down here and rescue us. You'll be doing a humanitarian deed as well as getting a top-quality product.

Calling All German Flyers - Billingham Has Your Bag

If you are going to choose the best of German camera equipment - Leica - you really should give some thought to choosing the best way of carrying it - particularly if you intend to go out on he street or travel in aircraft.

Street photography is, by its very nature, fast and discreet. If it is slow and obvious, it comes into the category of argument photography, followed by fist fight photography, followed by arrest photography. Those of you who do not wish to use your new Leica M camera with the 0.95 Noctilux lens as a fighting flail should elect to house it in a good bag and haul it out only when you need it to take pictures.

Leica themselves do make very good bags for this - there are satchels and neoprene cases and fitted  cases for a number of their cameras, and some of them are masterpieces of fine design and leather work. If you want a Leica bag, buy one with full confidence.

Walther Benser used to make fitted cases as well that were module systems for the film Leicas - you bought little leather boxes for each lens you had then tried to fit them together like a Chinese puzzle into a stiff leather box. Very much the enthusiast's device, but impossible to access quickly.

Billingham, on the other hand, have just delivered a case designed and marked for the Leica M series of cameras. The bag is supplied inside a characteristic silver Leica box and is further wrapped in a soft fitted Leica-marked black cloth bag. Undoubtedly there is a You-tube video of someone somewhere unwrapping one....an undoubted boon for those Leica users who are unsure of how to open a cardboard box.

The more confident user will note that the bag has ample space and three interior compartments in the main section for the camera body plus a lens as long as 135mm in the down position and for two smaller lenses on either side. The diagram suggests that you will be carrying a 21 and a 50 Noctilux, which we would also be delighted to sell to you. Don't stint yourself - there is also a digram of an MP camera body there so remember to pick one up before you leave.

The Billingham cloth and leather-trim quality are all there, with a Khaki twill and medium tan trim. The shoulder strap has their deluxe pad included. The zipper pulls are the tradition solid brass.

Please note the dedication tag on the bag itself....Leica.

This bag will attract admiration from other Leica users while remaining discrete enough to pass the attention of the average camera thief on the street. Dedicated Billingham bag thieves will zero in on it and attack you instantly, but if you are incautious enough to flaunt this sort of thing at Leica camera club meetings you have only yourself to blame...

Thinking Inside The Box - A Modest Proposal

'Tis nearly the tourist season - the safari and cruise tour companies are gearing up for the influx of Australian tourists and the Australian tourists are gearing up for a world of pain. We are assisting them.

Not a day goes by down here but what someone comes in and tells us that they are going on a holiday and they want to take their camera. And their camera. And their lens, lens, lens, lens, lens...and the laptop and the three chargers and the flashes and spare batteries and....perhaps a spare memory card, if the price is right.

And a lightweight tripod that folds into the size of a pocket pencil and can hold a Canon 1Dx with a 100-400 lens on it rock solid in an arctic gale.

And the whole lot should go into a bag that can be put in the overhead locker, leaving enough spare room for he 1 litre bottle of duty free Drambuie.

I find lithium pills help a lot these days...

Let me put forward a modest proposal - as Johnathon Swift did - that will make your trip successful. It will involve a week of experimentation but pay giant dividends when you are out across the globe.

Day One

1. Go to the linen press and get out all your teatowels. Find the empty cardboard box your TV came in and bring it in from the shed. Get some rope.

2. Set out all the camera bodies, lenses, chargers, laptops, batteries, and tripods that you are going to take on your trip in your lounge room.

3. Wrap each component up in a teatowel. Pack the parcels into the TV box. Jump on it if they will not all fit in, but get them in there.

4. Rope the box up and then tie it onto yourself. You can tie it over one shoulder, over two shoulders, or around your waist - your choice. Use Boy Scout knots.

5. Put your hat on, go out the front door, and set out to walk to Mundaring Weir.

6. Give us a call down at the shop when your vision starts to go. We've got a book down here that records the distances of various customers - one chap made it to Welshpool from Belmont before the St. John's Ambulance people got him.

Day Two

1. Put one camera body, one lens, and one spare battery into a shopping bag. Add a tripod if you must.

2. Rope that to one shoulder.

3. Hat, door, Mundaring.

4. See how much further you got? Take the bus home.

Day Three

1. Put a mirrorless camera and one lens - or a bridge camera, or a compact zoom into your jacket pocket. Put a Cullmann pocket tripod in the other pocket

2. Mundaring is nice this time of year, isn't it. I remember coming up here when I was courting. They had water in the dam then...

Scientific note: It is possible to get an entire 2-body, 5-lens, laptop, refrigerator, and year's supply of cheese into a Lowepro Santiago DV 25 pocket pouch. All you need to do is remove all the space between the nucleus and orbiting electrons of each atom of the outfit and shake them down together. It can be done with a black hole, but only once. The unpacking is the problem...

Not Just Any Old Bag - Billingham

You can carry your camera in nearly anything - a dedicated camera case, a trendy backpack, or a paper bag if you like. Some cameras thrive on this sort of thing, and if you have a waterproof underwater model you can haul it around in a goldfish bowl...

But if you have something nice - really nice...like a Leica or a new Fuji X-series camera - well, you'll want to do your gear and yourself more justice. After all, what we carry can say as much about us as what we wear.

The Billingham range of bags say that we are practical without losing sight of tradition - that we have some real style in our soul -that we appreciate the finer things of life. They also protect our valuable cameras very well and let us get in at them easily without asking us to navigate a maze of zips and velcro.

Look at the sepia-toned images of the Billingham f2.8. You can see that it is the model with the khaki cavalry twill bag and brown leather trim, but look closer to see the hand stitching on the edges and the solid brass fastening post. No wonder that Billingham has the word guarantee on their product booklet - and it is for 5 years. These are made with the same dedication that the English use for their finest shooting bags.

Look at the solid brass buckle and heavy webbing. The kind of construction that can slog through the trenches and not come apart.

Even if your usage is not likely to be as traumatic as that - these bags are the most desired in the street. People will know you know cameras when they see you with one.

And you won't be sorry you bought it.