I posted an older version of this over at Photo.net a month or so ago, but I thought you might enjoy seeing this here as well.

I've been shooting for a while with a Cambo SC monorail (and the associated hard case), and did not find it very portable at all. I was on the fence about buying a field camera, but I enjoyed the long bellows and ample movements of the monorail (and the low price). So, after a little trial and error, and a couple design changes, I've come up with a pretty slick way of backpacking the monorail around on day hikes.

I started with a $25 used Kelty backpack, a fairly large frontloading design. I then bought 2 roll up sleeping pads (dense, stiff, lightweight foam). With a whole lot of measuring and planning, I designed a backpack insert that will hold the monorail standards (with the rail removed) as well as lenses/boards/accessories.

Building it took about 3-4 hours in total. The foam was measured and cut, then glued together using a hot glue gun. I solved the problem of things shifting around by having a snug fit for each piece, and lots of support blocks around the edges. The area at the bottom of the pack holding the lensboards is really nice, because the front and rear elements of the lenses don't touch anything, each lensboard is held in place by the foam and support blocks.

The pack holds the monorail, 5 fidelity film holders (B&W film), Fuji Loupe, Pentax Spotmeter V, Kodak Readyload holder with 10-15 Fuji quickloads, filters, Nikkor SW 90mm f/8 (thanks to Guy Tal!), Fuji W 135mm f/5.6, Fuji A 240mm f/9, each in lensboard with cable release. I made my own lenswraps out of inexpensive soft black fabric. The whole foam insert fits snugly into the backpack. The rail, clamp and tripod all stay together and attach to the side of the pack. Not shown in the picture is the darkcloth which fits on top of the film/loupe/meter and keeps them in place; a foam insert which fits between the monorail standards; and a fitted foam cover which folds over the top of the monorail itself to hold it in place (with a hinge made out of gaffers tape). The whole pack, fully loaded and including the tripod comes in at 28-29 lbs which is totally portable for anything I'll do in a single day.

I've had it out on a couple hikes already, and did 5 miles yesterday evening in the Columbia River Gorge. It's worked wonderfully, both as a way of transporting gear and as a staging area for setting up and shooting once on location.

Anyhow, I hope this will inspire others to be creative in their efforts to get outdoors and shoot, no matter what gear you're using.

Sheldon