New bag for collecting?

[tv]

Just saw this bag and really was interested in it from a photography perspective. Got to thinking about it and it would also make a great collecting bag. I would keep some jars/bags in the fold out section and water/manuals/food/ go in the top.



paxispax.com/

[nomihoudai]

Too big for anything. I can't imagine this being fun for photography, nor insect collecting. When out insect collecting it is important to run and chase after a bug from time to time, and in this case, the less weight on your bag, the better. Equally with photo gear. Decide what you want to take a picture of during the day, and take only that specific gear into your hands. In any case, my rule of thumb is, you will only do one best shot of the day, and that is the only one worth showing.

What I have and use is a bumbag / belly bag. It has 2 sections, the larger one with forceps and a little bit of paper and a pen, and the front one with 20 large envelopes where I store any butterfly I catch inside. The large section can also hold 15 glass vials if I am out collecting microlepidoptera. In a pocket in my pants I keep a small bottle of 0,5L of water, that's everything I carry on my body while catching bugs. Any excess water/gear/camping materials/food go into a larger regular backpack on my bag. Once I hike to a worthy field I put the large backpack aside and chase after the bugs. (But it has also happened that I saw a good bug I had to chase after with the 20kg backpack on my back and uphill, then you need some power in your legs and back .

This is my two cents. I would not recommend buying it. It is one of these fancy adds that try selling you something "amazing", "world changing", etc. If it was that useful, it would be standard by now and everybody would have it, not only a specialized producer. Think about that.

p.S. the best food when out hiking is a simple mix of nuts and raisins. I loved the trail mix from whole foods. I would buy 3 pounds of it and only keep that to keep me going for 3 days.



Best shot of the day when out in Big Bend, downscaled to 1200px. Pyrocephalus rubinus male.

[wollastoni]

Another advice, one needs to choose between insect collecting or insect photographying when in the field... I have tried to do both and you end by damaging your macro camera.

So now, I put the net or the camera in the bag, depends if the area is worth collecting or not.

[cabintom]

Hmmm... when I go out collecting it's usually with a full-size backpack that is stuffed to the brim. Storage tupperware for empty triangles, another one for triangles containing specimens. A couple large jars, a few smaller ones. Small bottle of some sort of acetone solution, with needle/syringe. Hand-held GPS. Roll of toilet paper. Banana bait and, usually, 2 traps, with rope/string. 1L bottle of water, plus life-straw in case of emergencies. Forceps. Small plastic ziploc baggies. At least 4 individual packs of Glucose biscuits (you can't get trail mix in these parts). I'm likely forgetting something.

Once the traps are in place, the bag is considerably easier to handle. But, usually I'll find a nice spot to hunt, and plop the bag down until it's time to move on a bit further down trail.

[tv]

Oh yeah, I was definitely talking about either collecting or photographing with it, not both together. I think that this would be quite conducive to both for me. That may be in part because I'm not so much a run something down type collector. I've perfected a sneakup/ambush that works quite well. Last year I had an 80% success rate per swing on dragonflies. In this case not having to set either my bag or net down in the swamp to add samples would be totally worth it. As for photography, if I'm with someone, they generally don't like to stand around for 5 minutes while I fish a different lens out of my bag, so this would be helpful there as well.

Also I just checked and the bag is less than a year old, and none are even available on ebay yet. So at this point I doubt that most folks have even seen them, much less tried and abandoned the technology.

[exoticimports]

If you're not overnighting, you don't need a backpack.

My technique varies by situation, but in general it's the following:
1. military belt w/ (starting on front right and working around) compass, sunglass holder, pouch (sunscreen, TP, bug repellent, extra plastic bags), canteen, possibles box (extra Tupperware & envelopes), GPS
2. Field vest: left front pocket w/ small envelopes & forceps, knife inverted, right front more envelopes, big right pocket contains the active specimen Tupperware, big left contains filled Tupperware, rear cargo pocket contains jar for big beetles and filled specimen tupperwares.

Shifting weight to your hips instead of your back will make your day much easier.

Chuck