Great article Bernard, and just in time for winter and a whole new set of challenges. Very well thought out and helpful.
I would have appreciated if you covered some of the winter specific, technical, aspects. Lens condensation, extreme cold, water proofing and so on.
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Hi Philip,
Thanks for the kind words. Yep, it would indeed have been interesting to touch on that as well. Will think of it for v2.
I am also curious about how you pack your your camera on extended alpine climbs. I'm trying to save weight by just throwing everything into the top of my pack, but this affords very little protection. The camera and lenses are always jostled by the rock/ice gear. Have you found a way to protect the equipment while retaining mobility, or do you always have to compromise.
Phillip Dobson
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What I normally do is to keep the camera and lenses in the upper section of my Osprey packs as well.
I have settled with this approach when I started to shoot 4x5 3 years ago. I realized that I was unable to take interesting images on the fly. I personnally need time to scout a scene, set up a tripod and try different things. The partical consequence is that I need to drop my pack anyway. From then on, having to open it to take the camera out becomes less of a problem, except when shooting on icy/steep slopes where the risk of having the pack slide away on its own is very real.
To protect the camera inside the pack, I typically wrap it in a flexible camera pouch from pixgear/Hakuba, lenses are in their own flexible pouch too, one per lens.
I always keep the ice axe outside the pack and wrap my crampons into a protective pouch that prevents damage to the gear. I also try to keep a layer of clothes in between camera gear and mountaining gear.
This being said, most of my camera bodies look a bit like they have been to Vietnam in the 70s... I am not expecting too much in terms of resell value.
cheers,
Bernard