There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
I prefer to do landscape photography, but I wind up doing a lot of industrial and documentation photography as well. That makes for a messy bunch of gear, a lot of which I leave behind when I'm hiking out somewhere.
My main bag is a Lowepro Magnum 400 AW. (aka The Camera Apartment Building.) It's where everything goes at the end of the day. If I grab that bag and a tripod, I'm good to go for just about any situation. (Ok, I'd also have to grab the light stands, backdrop, etc. but I keep a pair of off-camera flashes in the bag, so ALMOST good to go.) Problem is, fully loaded this thing torques my spine enough to land me in the ER. I can just about lug it to the car, lug it into a building, and work from there, but there's no way I'd take it out on a trail.
Next is a Lowepro Inverse 100 AW, though I use it to haul sound gear for field recording more than I use it for camera gear. It's a heckuvalot more portable than the Magnum, but it'll only really carry one body and two lenses. Good for long hikes or for places where you know exactly which lenses you'll need to get the photo you're after, but limited as a general purpose bag.
I've also got a 20+ year old backpack I need to replace. (Also a Lowpro. Hmmm... I sense a pattern...) The poor thing's dying, but it's a good compromise between the two other bags. I can fit two bodies and three lenses and still leave room for a shutter release and filters. But it doesn't have a waist strap. I'm only good for about five miles before my shoulders start to hurt.