Attention Grabbers

Photographed with a Nikkor-O.C 35mm f/2 lens and a Nikon Close-Up No.4T supplementary lens on a Nikon D700.

A Safrotto copy of a Domke F-2 bag, and surprisingly good. The shoulder pad is from the Billingham range; otherwise all original. 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. Safrotto bags are made in China and sold extensively in the U.S. market. They seem a good deal less common in the U.K. I bought this one second-hand for £6, which represented the bargain of the year for me. It’s every bit as sturdy as Domke bags I have previously owned, including an F-2 Emerald and an F-4AF, but as they too were second-hand, I never knew under whose ownership those bags were made. Although some Safrotto products are very similar to Domke camera bags, they are not marketed with the same model designations. I have read on the web that at some point in the troubled history of bankruptcy and changes of ownership, Safrotto bought the rights to the Domke designs. One contributor remarked that the Domke name owners have never brought any legal action against Safrotto, which would be odd if they were making unauthorised copies. Instead they had some text on their web site for a couple of years asking viewers not to buy the "inferior knock-offs". Photographed with a Nikon D700 and a Nikkor O.C 35mm f/2 lens, factory converted to AI capability.

Bowden Hill rises steeply away from the river Avon at Lacock. Behind these gates is the Bowden Park estate and a country house (Grade I listed) which is not visible from the road. It was built in 1796. The estate is concealed by the slope of the hill and surrounding woodland. Nikon D700 with an AF Zoom-Nikkor 70-210mm f/4 lens at its longest.

Photographed with a Nikkor-O.C 35mm f/2 lens and a Nikon Close-Up No.4T supplementary lens on a Nikon D700.

My subscription to ipernity has lapsed. Even though the transfer of the business to a members' association has now been authorised, communication with members is poor. The former management increased the price of subscription shortly before relinquishing the reins; I wondered why that was necessary if he was passing the website to new people. Nor did I think the new price represented particularly good value from my personal point of view. So I am left in limbo with access to only a fraction of my catalogue. Fortunately my photographs are stored elsewhere anyway. I am thinking seriously of deleting my account. Should I do so, I would like to thank the many ipernity members who have warmly and politely exchanged opinions and information with me. The quality of this site is very good, but it is a small community which would benefit from the activity and breadth of experience that more people could bring to it.

Kennet and Avon Canal at Semington, Wiltshire. Canon EOS 40D + Canon EF 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM lens.

I revisited Lacock Abbey unwontedly. The trust ribbon was still in the same place. I salvaged it. A ribbon bearing the word 'trust' ought not lie neglected in a distant orchard. I collected some conkers and a lime tree seed to keep trust company. Nikon D700 and Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 AI lens and PK-13 extension tube.

The first Zenit-E models were produced in the KMZ plant in 1965. Over 8 million were manufactured. The Kodak Instamatic 204 was made in the UK between 1966 and 1968. Of course it was cheaper than the Soviet Zenit, but the results were often terrible. The Zenit was a single-lens reflex camera based on the Zorki rangefinder body. The Zorki line of rangefinder cameras was originally a direct Leica copy. Therefore, Zenit = Leica. (Maybe). The Zenit pentaprism is small, thus what you see through the viewfinder is only about two-thirds of what will be recorded on the film. Nonetheless it is vastly superior to a point-and-shoot camera with film in a cartridge lacking a proper pressure plate to keep it flat and even. Many Zenit cameras were supplied with a Helios-44 lens of 58mm focal length and a maximum aperture of f/2. This lens was a Soviet copy of the Carl Zeiss Biotar lens and had distinctive bokeh characteristics. So Helios = Zeiss. (Possibly). Photograph made with a Nikon D700 + a Micro-Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 AI lens.

For the photographer there are specific-purpose bags: rainy day bags; anti-pickpocket bags; bags which do not look like camera bags for use in tough neighbourhoods; slim-profile bags for carrying in crowded areas; bags to inspire confidence at an important event you've been hired to shoot; bags so impossibly large you use them as a supply depot where your other bags call to make changes to their contents; bags which are devoted to specialist items like flashguns or filters; medium-format bags; 35mm film camera bags; digital camera-with-lens-fixed-always bags; soiled bags that you don't mind using in dirty conditions ... the list is endless. The more camera bags I try - all sourced from eBay, the world's greatest lending library, where sometimes it's even possible to turn a modest profit on short-term acquisitions - the more I realise that what we're talking about is a sack. A sack with compartments, a sack with different dimensions to the previous sack, a sack made from different materials, but nevertheless a sack. This particular bag is the Tenba P-750 Pro Pak™ from the early 1980s, with its super-cool logo which reads the same upside down (but best not to verify this when the bag is full of kit). You often see them referred to as the ‘Tenba Equa’ because the logo suggests that is the name. It was available in rust, black, and grey, as well as the more traditional tan colour you see here. It is constructed of ‘Cordura’, a waterproof and rugged nylon. ‘Cordura’ will always win in a friction squabble with your coat or trousers. Tenba put a less aggressive pad of material on later Pro Pak™ bags where the ‘Cordura’ met the owner’s clothing. The P-750 is an unusual design with a fairly deep compartment within the lid to store 30 to 40 rolls of film, and a stout zip fastener to keep the contents secure. On the other side of the top ‘half’- i.e. on the inside of the bag’s main compartment - is a modest zipped compartment which might be for tickets and passport-type documents. There are four ‘D’ rings, for a back-harness or tripod straps, and unusual side straps which can be deployed to limit the travel of the lid or to transport a monopod. The main compartment lacks the extreme weather-proofing measures you find on a Billingham bag, like zips and secondary flaps. That is perhaps a weakness if near water or sand. It rather negates the value of ‘Cordura’ as a waterproof fabric. The coups de foudre are the two external pouches which, in combination with the hip logo, make this bag unusually distinctive in a market place stuffed with boring oblong boxes with straps. Photographed at Avebury stone circle using a Nikon D90 and an AF Nikkor 50mm f/1.4D lens.