Review of Colorado Photo Vest
I purchased the Colorado Photography Vest in mid-August and I wanted to put it through its paces before writing a review. This review might be a little wordy, but I’m impressed enough with the product to let everyone know. I’m a professional nature and wildlife photographer with thousands of credits in a wide variety of media worldwide. I started photography in 1980 and got my first image published in 1995. I photograph all natural history subjects, but what got me started was macro photography. Macro is still a large part of my work, and this sometimes requires lugging a lot of equipment. Over the decades, I’ve tried a wide variety of photo-bags (backpacks, shoulder bags, belt-bags, modular bags, etc.) and I was never really very happy with them. Yes, they could hold a lot of equipment, but I always hated how awkward they were to carry. There is no “one-size-fits-all” backpack. I’m 6’2” with a large frame, and I never found a backpack that fit me. And for my style of photography, a backpack was never ideal for me. I’d understand if I had to hike for miles to find a subject (which I have never done for photography), or had to walk a long distance to get to some remote camp, then a backpack situation might work. But, with my style of photography, I’m constantly stopping for photos, and it was always a pain to have to take off the backpack to access gear. Another thing was I always had to worry about where to put the bag. Oftentimes, I couldn’t find a place to put the backpack down. It always seemed to be either muddy, snowy, thick with tall vegetation, wet with rain or dew, not to mention full of critters that ended up on/in the bag. It’s never fun to hoist a wet and muddy backpack over your shoulders and have a spider jump onto your head. And, I don’t want to think about how many times I nearly dumped my gear out of the bag because I forgot to zip it up before slinging onto my back. Another thing, if I decide to carry this sort of bag by using the shoulder strap, I inevitably ended up walking sideways and having a real crick in my back at the end of the day. With my new vest, all of these problems are alleviated. I’m amazed at how easy it is to put the vest on and once it’s zipped up, the weight of my gear is evenly distributed and after just a few minutes, I hardly even notice it. The Colorado Vest is loaded with large and roomy pouches and pockets and it’s remarkable how much gear it holds. Especially on those macro-photo days when I’m carrying up to three lenses, two bodies, tele-converter, extension tubes, diopters, flash, flash bracket, batteries, memory cards, cable release, pruner, plamp, gloves, and so on. If I’m chasing and getting photos of a butterfly and then it lays an egg, I can quickly reach into a pouch to get an extension tube or a tele-converter to increase my magnification. This now takes seconds to do as opposed to the old way of trying to dig into a backpack that might now be yards away laying on the ground somewhere. With this awkward procedure, by the time I accessed my backpack, added the extra gear, and made it back to the spot with the butterfly egg, I probably already lost track of where the egg was. I hate to admit it, but there were times I passed up opportunities because of the hassle. With my new vest, this is not the case anymore. Now, I find my variety of subject matter and volume of photos has dramatically increased because of the ease of quickly and easily changing gear. And speaking of changing gear, when I’m out chasing active macro critters, I’m mostly hand-holding and using a flash (either full or fill), but when I come upon a static subject (flowers, mushrooms, leaves, patterns, intimate scenes, etc.) I slow down and shoot from a tripod with a cable-release. Now, it’s much easier to switch between the two and again, I find myself increasing my subject matter and volume. A great standard feature with my new vest includes a heavy-duty carrying handle. This makes it easier to hand-carry the vest when loading into a vehicle and I also use it to hang my vest on a large hook for storage. I also like the D-rings on the exterior, especially when I’m doing night macro photography. I can easily attached a flashlight on one and a black-light (for finding scorpions and caterpillars) to the other. The MOLLE loops provide tons of attachment points for more pouches (such as my reading glasses case) or other items. I love the large cargo pocket at the back of the vest where I carry my pruner, plamp and leather gloves (when dealing with thorns, briers, poison ivy, etc.). And, the vest can easily be adjusted to fit me regardless if I’m wearing a light weight shirt in the summer, or a heavy coat in the winter. Mentioning size, I used the sizing chart to easily figure out the proper size of my vest (you must do this to get the right size). The zippers are heavy duty and even with gloves, can be easily used. I do however, recommend purchasing your vest with zipper silencers, because otherwise, they do make jingling sounds that may spook some animals. I also recommend adding the padded shoulders option, especially if you carry a tripod. After decades of slinging a tripod over my shoulder, I now have a permanent grove. The padded shoulders totally alleviate this problem. All of the products at the Vest Guy are made in the U.S.A., which I really appreciate. While figuring out exactly what I needed, I chatted a couple times with Steffany and she was professional and extremely helpful. The online order process was easy and the shipment was much faster than expected. So, in a nutshell, I’m a very happy camper. I can’t say enough, I’m very happy with my Colorado Photography Vest. Click here to see my work: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bryanereynolds/albums/72157648698477036
