Before I set off on a thru-hike of the Pacific Northwest Trail in 2007, I partook in a drastic re-thinking of every piece of gear in my backpacking kit. I sewed a spinnaker tarp, some silnylon and Tyvek stuff sacks, modified my ULA Conduit pack, and weighed everything countless times. One might say I cut the handle off the proverbial toothbrush that has become the metaphor for ultralight backpacking to the masses. I copied ideas from Backpacking Light articles and forum members and scoured the Internet and my peers for suggestions and techniques, until I'd created a gear list that I believed would serve me well for two straight months of twenty-mile days. There was one item that continued to mystify me as I could not find a commercial product or homemade solution that was just what I wanted - a case to hold my point-and-shoot camera.
Sometime during the winter of 2006, I grabbed a piece of bubble wrap and some duct tape and threw together a crude sleeve to hold my Canon Powershot SD400, then started carrying it around with me in the left-hand pocket of my pants... all the time. What I thought was a throw-away project, manufactured from scraps of garbage and a few lengths of tape, not only worked wonderfully, but was so durable and easy to use that I ended up carrying it with me for the entire 1200 miles of the PNT the following summer.
ARTICLE OUTLINE
- Background
- Version Two
- Make Your Own
- Time Required
- Materials
- The Process
- Step One
- Step Two
- Step Three
- Step Four
- Step Five
- Step Six
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I've used "reflectix"tm Al-coated bubble wrap for a lot of camera cases – but with a silnylon liner (as well as a silnylon shell for moisture protection), as the aluminum layer will SCRATCH LCD display screens on cameras etc.
The stuff also makes a great "thermos" box for keeping food hot while re-hydrating and insulating your hands from the hot food bag. – just use packing tap to assemble and bits of hook and loop for a latch.
Also makes a great light insulator for water bottles too.
I’ve been using this case- neoprene, protect well against shock, but not waterproof
I took a 5×4″ alkosak and lined it w/ some bubble wrap (bubble out w/ packing tape applied to help hold it’s shape- a little strip of packing tape on each side to adhere the bubble wrap to the alkosak)
know it’s shock proof AND waterproof- also shaved an even ounce off of the weight 1.3 oz vs 0.3 oz :)
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They're out of stock, but this is pretty much what the bubblepackits on this site are, it seems.
^ exactly- I looked and looked and couldn't find any (well I take that back- if I wanted to buy 50+ I found some :))
this one might be a little more waterproof (at least that's alkosak's claim over "regular" ziplock products) than the one offered by BPL
Nice idea. I just finished a 6g bubble-wrap case for my camera.
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