Never had an issue in 35+ years of taking pictures, carrying either my camera bag, wearing a rucksack or carrying just my camera.

 

I used to throw my Leica and lenses into wool
Socks and put them in my military rucksack- it was the poor mans camera bag and also completely covert- but agree with above, if you carry a bag that says NIKON on it, it’s begging to draw attention

 

My kid used to carry his camera bag open with his Nikon strap hanging out. Always warned him. On his semester abroad in Brazil his slovenly behavior caught up with him at the Jesus statue in Rio.

 

If you’re looking to do family prints and negatives an old shoe box, or get into shooting film- these are hard to beat.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bh...223201_perfection_v800_photo_scanner.html/amp

For small format film (35mm), the old Nikon Coolscan’s were top of the market for optics, but they haven’t been supported by Nikon in about a decade so 3rd party software like Viewscan are what you use today to make them happy with modern computers- plus the Nikon software sucked.

 

And yes, there is a large surface area of Velcro on the main flap on those old Crumplers- the trick was to cover half of it with gaffers tape.

 

That's really useful to know, thanks! Although smashes the budget I have. I'm doing this as a favour to the family so didn't want to spend a fortune unless really had to. Basically want something to:
1. Scan the film I shoot
2. Scan the film and prints from Dad's horde.

Crumpler stuff seems pretty bullet proof, but know whats being mentioned about its its s an obvious camera bag. Will play with it and see how it works out.

 

Understood about the price and some of the cheaper ones can do prints - but as far as negative scanners these are about as good as you can get from a desktop and the field is limited these days. The lenses are in the bottom and there is a light source in the top- that’s what you need to scan negatives (scanners that have light source only in the bottom work do documents and prints but not negatives).
The predecessor to the 800 is the V700 or V750 (750 was the same scanner as the 700 with a wet scanning kit which is totally unnecessary and a pita to use). There isn’t much difference between the older and newer one. If you can pick one of those up on the used market- that’s the way to go if you’re in a budget but if they have been dropped or handled roughly it can screw up the carriage or lens orientation. But frankly, anyone who owned one of these knew how to handle them.

 

Thing is ... If you took all this to Costco, you’d spend more I think. I have the same job ahead.

 

Peak Design makes amazing backpacks, camera bags and they just released a highly successful rated tripod. Great company, check them out.

www.peakdesign.com

 

I'm happy with my Epson V550 at about 1/3 the price, and they do cheaper ones too.
https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/buying-guides/the-best-film-scanners

Bonus point: Linux drivers available from Epson

 

And they just scan at minimum resolution and do auto correction, no dust spotting- etc. the Epson’s actually give you great control over scan quality and allow manual controls over resolution, exposure, corrections- etc. we use them at work for scanning 50-100 year old glass plate and large format negatives and override all the auto controls so we can get what we want from them.
Or you can just set it to auto and scan away.

 

I know nothing about these smaller scanners as I have always needed them for large format as well as small, so these may be great options.

 

That Opticfilm 8100 looks like a modern day replacement for the old Nikon Coolscan 5000 which was the best of the best back in the day for 35mm. If that is as large as you plan to go, I think that would be worth looking at- but it apparently won’t scan prints like the v550 will. I totally forgot the 550 existed as it will only scan up to medium format- it’s a great suggestion.

 

An important thing to note on these pro leve flatbed scanners is to scan at the optical resolution (which is not always published). They may say 4800dpi for Max scanning resolution but anything over 720 is interpolated (as is the case for the V750 on the full platent lens, the small format lens i think was 2400dpi).
Usually you can see it in the software when you select resolution as it will be an oddball in the selection pulldown like:
150
300
600
720
1200
2400
4800

 

This is the thing, I had a couple of quotes from online companies to scan and create an EDMS type thing and it just wasn't worth it for the money. Instead find a home film scanner and set to it every night , on to a NAS drive I can then share the link out to the family from. For me shooting film I'm already fed up of sending off to process and the cost, sadly don't have room to process at home.

 

Don’t need a darkroom!!! Changing bag and Patterson tank (steel if you’re a masochist and hard-core), and that’s it! There are a few tricks to it but it’s easy to do.
Edit: As long as it’s not color- for that you’re on your own.
If you want a shopping list and some pointers, PM me

 

https://parallaxphotographic.coop/how-to-develop-colour-film/

Fair warning: I have always let a lab process film but did my own colour printing from neg and particularly slides myself with the expose -> tank -> time/temp process-in-daylight method.

 

I also like the M-Classic bag. Designed for rangefinder cameras it is very unobtrusive. Now holds a Hassy.

 

For reference this is what I inherited, Dad used this thing A LOT and it still looks brand new. Lowepro bag is a PITA hence the thread harvesting.
to

 

The A-1 was their totl consumer camera- nice one. You can pick up the matching motor drive for those for a song (check KEH’s website). They handle wonderfully on the drive (if you don’t mind the weight) and there’s nothing quite like the sound of a mechanical motor drive.

Make sure you keep a spare battery or two in the bag, if you forget to turn the metering off they will bleed a battery in a day or two.