Nono and I went on another pilgrimage to Hidalgo as I accompanied him to get his 20D and some other stuff.

We then went to Aperture Banawe to get his ImageTank, and have my ImageTank warrantied (the batteries were acting up). I must say that the new batch of tanks are pretty sexy as they’re now silver instead of the sick blue I have - I wish they’d just replace the unit with a fixed, new batch instead of fixing the same one hehehehe but that’s just my OC-ness on color-coordinatedness talking.

And of course, I just had to buy stuff. After all, why go through all the trouble of circling the whole of Metro Manila (Quiapo to Banawe) when you don’t intend to get something out of it!

I figured that I’d eventually need a modular setup for carrying my stuff. I noticed this on our trip to Iloilo, where I had to bring my Lowepro bag with everything in it, just to take photos. It wasn’t a big bag really, but the weight and “unwieldy-ness” (is there such a term?) of the blasted thing just made it a nuisance to lug around.

Then I thought about the upcoming trips and tours we might have, and it suddenly became an urgent concern.

I figured that it would be nice to have a system that can bring everything when needed, but also capable of bringing less (when the situation calls for it)

To cut a long story short, I got me these at Aperture (pictures taken from the Tamrac website):

Well not actually those - just the belt that holds them together. I did buy a few of the ones pictured (and not) though. Namely this and this:

The first is a CF/Battery wallet, for obvious purposes. Next is a medium-sized lens-holder - currently for my 28-135 IS USM lens and my prime (as smaller lenses would obviously fit in there)

Lastly, we have the Zoom 19 as seen below

Funny thing is, that the Zoom19 already has a CF/battery wallet built-in! I didn’t notice it till I checked the product page again and saw the side zipper. Yet it’s all good since now I have space for the BP511As (the camera’s batteries) as the regular AAs (and CFs) don’t play nice when trying to fit in the same wallet as the BP511As.

My “modular system” is somewhat complete, just need another general purpose pouch and a pouch for my flash.

Some people may ask why I didn’t go Lowepro. The price baby! The Zoom19 fetched for about 2.5k, while its Lowepro counterpart easily costs 6k. They both do the same thing and are about the same size - it was a no-brainer decision.

All in all, it was a very productive day as I got a ton of useful stuff and I didn’t even have to shell out more than 5k (which is a great big deal when we’re talking about our “pilgrimages.”)

Stay tuned for Ramadan #4, as Nono and I return for my replacement 20D (the story of which, is reserved for another post) and hopefully some battery grips.

post updated on July 4, 2006 @ 12:35PM