My solution was to use lens cases which are cube shaped with a zipper enclosure. Because they are cubed and padded, I have been able to pack lenses next to one another without fear. I never liked the wraps... just seemed flimsy to me... especially when working with larger lenses.
These cases can be bought through Alan Brubaker... www.filmholders.com (look under cordura cases). If you use 4x4 boards or smaller, the standard sizes fit. Custom sizes can be made as well.
Good Luck! Steve
Protection must be provided at three levels: for lenses, 1) surface 2) impact. 3) A third level of protection must be provided additionally for some special items: Protection from twisting or bending. Surface protection may to come first to mind but you need to think beyond. Impact such as sustained when falling with the backpack or dropping the backpack or the lenses, or spilling the BPsB contents could cause severe inner damage such as lens element separation or outer damage or both. Impact protection requires adequate damping material to cushion the blows. Bubble packing plastic is the lightest and one of the most effective, also medium-high density polyester foam as used for electronics is highly effective and when in sheet form can be used for wrapping the lenses. Flexible plastics may contain plasticizers, and should not contact glass surfaces in filters or lenses. This is especially true of vinyl plastic sheeting. Unprotected glass filters such as the super-expensive Lee polarizer and enhancing filters must be protected from twisting or bending forces. This calls for a rigid plastic box with foam inserts to also provide impact and surface protection. I prefer photo-backpacks in as much they provide the cushioning and orderly placement of the equipment for fast retrieval. Photo- backpacks' designers never think that you will also have to carry other things besides photo equipment; however, you can piggyback a small backpack onto your photo pack to take care of non-photo items. A small pigybackpack with a large price tag is sold by LowePro for their photo packs. You can use many a small backpack instead at a fraction of the cost.
My experience tells me
<ul> <li>Avoid unshaped wraps, bags and pouches are better <li>padded are better <li>beltloops are better especially if you have a belt system in your kit, if you are in the field and if you want to be fast <li>pouches with framesheets are better </ul> I just looked at the site Steve mentioned. The pouch looks one of the bests in the current market (my only wish is if they framesheeted the pouch). Try look into Lightware pouches. I recall they make a small framesheeted square one with a beltloop. Check out the dementions for your lenses.
Thanks for all the input! Although not mentioned above, I think I've found a solution that will work quite well even though it's not meant for large-format use. A friend has recently started using stuff from www.kinesisgear.com to haul his Canon D30 system around and I think I can adapt their lens and accessories bags to serve my purposes. It's not cheap, unfortunately, but it does appear to be very well made and I like the idea of carrying all the cases around on a belt instead of on my shoulders, where it's not immediately accessible.
I'm hoping to borrow my friend's belt-and-harness as well as a couple of his bags sometime in the few weeks to field test it and see if I'm as happy with it in practice as I am in theory ... I will report back then with my results.
Again, thanks for all the input as it was very helpful.
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