So the camera bag project took a bit longer than expected. It wasn't the actual work that took that long, though, as that only took me a day or two. The biggest delay was in figuring out how to do it and subsequent trips to the hardware store for materials or tools. Since I work full time (like most people), I'm pretty much bound to the weekend (or rather Saturdays since most stores are closed on Sundays) to get supplies, meaning a full week delay whenever I, say, break a needle or come to the conclusion I need rivets to attach some parts.
I started out with a strip of thick paper, on which I traced the contours of the bag I was making the insert for. The paper served as a template, as well as providing rigidity when the bag is done. After cutting it to size, I covered it with batting using double-sided carpeting tape. Well, technically I covered it with a baby blanket my brother's mother in-law had left over after a failed embroidery project, but it serves the same function.
Then I encountered my first (minor) setback. There aren't really any stores left in this town that sell fabrics. The only colour my local arts and crafts store carries fabric-wise, is white. Which I didn't want to use, because the backpack I'm using is black with orange trim and I wanted to use the same theme for the inside, too. Fortunately, a friend had some black fabric left over that I could use. It turned out to be just enough; I ended up with mere scraps left over. Covering the paper/batting strips in fabric was pretty straight-forward with the sewing machine I borrowed from the aforementioned mother in-law, though it did take me some time to get the hang of it. I hadn't touched a sewing machine for like 15 years, but I was pretty pleased with how everything came out. Except for a few little shelves, I had just about every individual piece ready by now. But then I hit a major problem. The combination of fabric, batting and paper making up every segment proved to be too thick when I tried to attach them to eachother. The same went for the velcro I wanted to attach on the inside to attach the movable shelves. I tried using a stronger needle, but that failed, too. Frustrated, I let the project sit for a week or so while I thought about other options. Then, an unrelated trip to the hardware store put me on the idea of using (blind) rivets. So armed with a rivet tool, I gave it a try. It actually worked really well. The only problem was making (and more specifically: lining up) the holes with all those layers of different materials. I've used grommets before, which don't require making a hole first, but never rivets. So yet another trip to the hardware store had to be made, this time for a hole punch.
After rivetting everything together, all that was left to do was sew a few more shelves and 2 mesh pockets with zipper for smaller items.
I'd say all-in-all, it took me somewhere between 1 and 2 days to make this, spread out over the course of a month.
I didn't really have a set budget for this project, it was more a "see how it goes" kind of thing. But comparable camera bags I've seen easily cost $150 or more and I definitely stayed under that. I lucked out with the paper and fabric, since I didn't have to buy that. Needles, thread, velcro, zippers and the like cost me somewhere between $25 and $30. Though I have to say I could probably have gotten said supplies for less if I went to a department store instead of the more expensive crafts store, but the owner of the crafts store is a good friend of my brother, so I went there. I also spent about the same amount on tools (the rivetting tool and hole punch), but those don't really count as I can use them for other projects, too. But even then, I still come out a lot cheaper than it would cost to buy a comparable bag. And an added bonus is that this backpack is actually half of a set of 2, and I can attach them to eachother with a zipper. So I have one bag for my camera gear and one for my laptop and such, but carry-on-wise it still counts as one bag. Also, if I ever want to use that backpack for something else, I can just take out the insert (it's one part, complete with a back side).
The binder-like things are what I use for my filters and (macro) lenses. They're originally meant for minisdisc (remember those? They never really caught on, did they), but I found them perfectly sized for my filters. And they also fit snugly in my bag.
I do have a few too many filters and lenses. I'm getting more and more into photography, and aside from reading some books about the subject I also wanted to just experiment a little. I found 2 websites (DealExtreme.com and FocalPrice.com) that offered cheap filters and macro lenses and I figured I'd give them a try. I'm aware they're not of the highest quality (like, say B+W or Hoya), but from the reviews I've read, they're certainly good value for money. For around $5-10 per lens (some even less), I can experiment to my heart's content with pretty much every conceivable kind of filter, and if I like the effect I can upgrade to a better quality, and if I don't like the effect of a particular filter I've only wasted a few dollars so I don't have to feel bad about it.
The gear so far:
- Kodak Z710 (dSLR is a little out of my pricerange, and also sometimes I simply want to point and shoot)
- 0.7x original Kodak/Schneider-Kreuznach wide-angle lens
- 1.4x original Kodak/Schneider-Kreuznach tele lens
- 0.45x wide-angle lens
- 2.0x tele lens
- 0.25x fisheye lens (which I've hardly used, but it's fun to play around with from time to time)
- CPL filter
- UV filter
- ND filters 2, 4 and 8 (to experiment with long exposures, I like the look it gives)
- Macro lenses (+1, +2, +4, +8 and +10)
- Star filter
- Diffuser
- IR filter
- Gradual colour filters (orange, yellow, blue, green, with yellow and purple hopefully added soon to round off the collection)
Anyway, as you can probably tell there are still a few small things I need to finish. Most notably trim the little pieces of string that are sticking out and add a few more rivets in places for extra strenght. But it's near enough done to return the sewing machine (the person I've borrowed it from asked for it back after it had been at my place for like 2 months...) and to actually start using the bag. The finish might not be as neat as you'd get when you buy a bag, but I'm proud of my work
.
The contractor is coming by tomorrow to mark everything for the foundations and floor, followed by the company that will drive the piles into the ground on Tuesday. Then sometime later this week they'll finish the rest of the foundations so I can start work next week. So this weekend I needed to clear everything out of the yard, like shrubs, trees, pavers, etc. Lot of work was done, I can tell you that. I can't believe I only have one more week left at work! Then I'm off from work for 5 weeks 
. Though I shouldn't get too excited, since I'll be working hard for most of those 5 weeks 
.
I started out with a strip of thick paper, on which I traced the contours of the bag I was making the insert for. The paper served as a template, as well as providing rigidity when the bag is done. After cutting it to size, I covered it with batting using double-sided carpeting tape. Well, technically I covered it with a baby blanket my brother's mother in-law had left over after a failed embroidery project, but it serves the same function.
Then I encountered my first (minor) setback. There aren't really any stores left in this town that sell fabrics. The only colour my local arts and crafts store carries fabric-wise, is white. Which I didn't want to use, because the backpack I'm using is black with orange trim and I wanted to use the same theme for the inside, too. Fortunately, a friend had some black fabric left over that I could use. It turned out to be just enough; I ended up with mere scraps left over. Covering the paper/batting strips in fabric was pretty straight-forward with the sewing machine I borrowed from the aforementioned mother in-law, though it did take me some time to get the hang of it. I hadn't touched a sewing machine for like 15 years, but I was pretty pleased with how everything came out. Except for a few little shelves, I had just about every individual piece ready by now. But then I hit a major problem. The combination of fabric, batting and paper making up every segment proved to be too thick when I tried to attach them to eachother. The same went for the velcro I wanted to attach on the inside to attach the movable shelves. I tried using a stronger needle, but that failed, too. Frustrated, I let the project sit for a week or so while I thought about other options. Then, an unrelated trip to the hardware store put me on the idea of using (blind) rivets. So armed with a rivet tool, I gave it a try. It actually worked really well. The only problem was making (and more specifically: lining up) the holes with all those layers of different materials. I've used grommets before, which don't require making a hole first, but never rivets. So yet another trip to the hardware store had to be made, this time for a hole punch.
After rivetting everything together, all that was left to do was sew a few more shelves and 2 mesh pockets with zipper for smaller items.
I'd say all-in-all, it took me somewhere between 1 and 2 days to make this, spread out over the course of a month.
I didn't really have a set budget for this project, it was more a "see how it goes" kind of thing. But comparable camera bags I've seen easily cost $150 or more and I definitely stayed under that. I lucked out with the paper and fabric, since I didn't have to buy that. Needles, thread, velcro, zippers and the like cost me somewhere between $25 and $30. Though I have to say I could probably have gotten said supplies for less if I went to a department store instead of the more expensive crafts store, but the owner of the crafts store is a good friend of my brother, so I went there. I also spent about the same amount on tools (the rivetting tool and hole punch), but those don't really count as I can use them for other projects, too. But even then, I still come out a lot cheaper than it would cost to buy a comparable bag. And an added bonus is that this backpack is actually half of a set of 2, and I can attach them to eachother with a zipper. So I have one bag for my camera gear and one for my laptop and such, but carry-on-wise it still counts as one bag. Also, if I ever want to use that backpack for something else, I can just take out the insert (it's one part, complete with a back side).
The binder-like things are what I use for my filters and (macro) lenses. They're originally meant for minisdisc (remember those? They never really caught on, did they), but I found them perfectly sized for my filters. And they also fit snugly in my bag.
I do have a few too many filters and lenses. I'm getting more and more into photography, and aside from reading some books about the subject I also wanted to just experiment a little. I found 2 websites (DealExtreme.com and FocalPrice.com) that offered cheap filters and macro lenses and I figured I'd give them a try. I'm aware they're not of the highest quality (like, say B+W or Hoya), but from the reviews I've read, they're certainly good value for money. For around $5-10 per lens (some even less), I can experiment to my heart's content with pretty much every conceivable kind of filter, and if I like the effect I can upgrade to a better quality, and if I don't like the effect of a particular filter I've only wasted a few dollars so I don't have to feel bad about it.
The gear so far:
- Kodak Z710 (dSLR is a little out of my pricerange, and also sometimes I simply want to point and shoot)
- 0.7x original Kodak/Schneider-Kreuznach wide-angle lens
- 1.4x original Kodak/Schneider-Kreuznach tele lens
- 0.45x wide-angle lens
- 2.0x tele lens
- 0.25x fisheye lens (which I've hardly used, but it's fun to play around with from time to time)
- CPL filter
- UV filter
- ND filters 2, 4 and 8 (to experiment with long exposures, I like the look it gives)
- Macro lenses (+1, +2, +4, +8 and +10)
- Star filter
- Diffuser
- IR filter
- Gradual colour filters (orange, yellow, blue, green, with yellow and purple hopefully added soon to round off the collection)
Anyway, as you can probably tell there are still a few small things I need to finish. Most notably trim the little pieces of string that are sticking out and add a few more rivets in places for extra strenght. But it's near enough done to return the sewing machine (the person I've borrowed it from asked for it back after it had been at my place for like 2 months...) and to actually start using the bag. The finish might not be as neat as you'd get when you buy a bag, but I'm proud of my work
.The contractor is coming by tomorrow to mark everything for the foundations and floor, followed by the company that will drive the piles into the ground on Tuesday. Then sometime later this week they'll finish the rest of the foundations so I can start work next week
. So this weekend I needed to clear everything out of the yard, like shrubs, trees, pavers, etc. Lot of work was done, I can tell you that. I can't believe I only have one more week left at work! Then I'm off from work for 5 weeks . Though I shouldn't get too excited, since I'll be working hard for most of those 5 weeks .
wyldesage:
Wow, that turned out really great!! isnt it so much worth it knowing you made all that yourself? I didnt realize what you were making was going to be so big, but I see why you ended up making it, you got exactly what you wanted!
pikahyper:
DIY Macro Lense