Watershed Ocoee dry bag (EN,SLO)

                             Watershed Ocoee dry bag with photo padding

I love taking photos of extreme kayaking, but furthermore, I work as a rafting photographer, which means I take my DSLR camera to the river more or less every day during the rafting season. I accompany rafts with my kayak, so it is essential that I store my camera in a watertight and shock resistant box or bag. I have been using a Pelicase hard box, until I broke it in the middle of the last season. I had to buy something fast, as Pelicase repair was about to take more than a month. Pelicase was great for taking rafting photos but it also always made me nervous on more extreme descents, as I couldn’t manage to fit it anywhere else but in between my legs, which poses a safety risk. So I opted for something different. Dry bags are probably the only good alternative to hard cases, but normally wrapping my camera into a towel and fitting it into a dry bag made me worry about damaging it. I heard some good reviews of Watershed bags so I went to Alpin Action store to inspect it more closely.

            Pietro, a store owner, suggested Ocoee duffel. I was firstly impressed by a duffel shape, which makes putting something in and taking it out much easier than from a regular bag. Watershed bags have a ZipDry seals and don’t use the annoying rolling system, which almost never seals a bag completely. ZipDry is really easy to open and close. All the material and craftsmanship looked really good and overall it seemed like a great piece of gear. But I kind of suspected it would before I went to check it out. My trust issues were concerning more the impact protection.  What I didn’t know is that you can also buy special photo camera padding with smart dividing set. Even though this padding is light and relatively thin, it seems to really protect from impacts well. My last issue was its big price. But hey, I needed it for work and ending up with two Pelicases didn’t seem like a good alternative. I bought it and I’m still really glad I did. Maybe a Pelicase is a little better for my work, where I need to take the case in and out of the boat really fast and I don’t need to securely place it anywhere. But when I go paddling for myself, I newer think twice about taking the Watershed. I am very relieved that I don’t need to have that hard box in between my legs anymore and for now I fully trust the Ocoee duffel in the back of my boat not to leak even if I swim. Though I hope I’ll never get to test that.  

 Text :Andraž Krpič

Watershed Ocoee suha torba z oblogo za fotoaparat

Izredno rad fotografiram ekstremni kajak, poleg tega pa delam tudi kot fotograf raftinga, kar pomeni, da med rafting sezono vzamem svoj DSLR fotoaparat na reko bolj ali manj vsak dan. Ker rafte spremljam s svojim kajakom, je bistvenega pomena, da fotoaparat hranim v vodotesnih in na udarce odpornih škatlah ali torbah. Polovico sezone sem delal s Pelicase trdim ohišjem, dokler ga nisem sredi sezone počil. Hitro sem moral kupiti nekaj novega, saj mi je bilo rečeno, da bo Pelicase na popravilu več kot mesec dni. Pelicase je odlična za fotografiranje raftinga, me je pa tudi vedno delal »živčnega« na bolj ekstremnih spustih, saj ga zaradi velikosti uspem spraviti samo med nogami, kar predstavlja tveganje za varnost. Zato sem se odločil za nekaj drugačnega. Suhe vreče so verjetno edina dobra alternativa plastičnim škatlam, vendar pa me običajno ovijanje mojega fotoaparata v brisačo in tlačenje v suho vrečo skrbi, da se bo poškodoval. Slišal sem nekaj dobrih kritik glede Watershed vreč, zato sem šel v trgovino Alpin Action, da si jih bolj podrobno ogledam.

Pietro, lastnika trgovine, mi je za fotoaparat predlagal majno torbo Ocoee. Najprej sem bil navdušen nad oblike torbe, ki omogoča veliko lažje vstavljanje, kot v navadno suho vrečk. Watershed vreče imajo ZipDry zapirala in ne uporabljajo neugodnega sistema zavijanja, ki skoraj nikoli ne zatesni vreče v celoti. ZipDry je zelo enostaven za odpiranje in zapiranje. Material in izdelava sta videti res dobro in na splošno izgleda torba zelo kvalitetno. Ampak to sem nekako sumil, še preden sem si šel torbo sam pogledati . Bolj me je skrbelo vprašanje zaščite pred udarci. Kar nisem vedel je, da lahko kupite tudi posebno oblazinjenje za fotoaparat s premičnimi pregradami. Čeprav je ta podloga lahka in relativno tanka, se zdi, da resnično ščiti pred udarci. Moje zadnja skrb je bila njegova velika cena. Ampak nekaj sem nujno potreboval za delo in čez kak mesec ostati z dvema Pelicasoma se mi ni zdela dobra alternativa. Torbo sem kupil in prav nič mi ni žal za to. Mogoče je Pelicase malo bolj primeren za moje delo, kjer moram vzeti zadevo iz čolna in jo dati nazaj zelo hitro in pogosto ter me zaradi lahke težavnosti reke ne skrbi za varnost. Toda ko grem veslati zase, ne pomislim dvakrat preden vzamem Watershed torbo. Zelo mi je odleglo, da mi med nogami ni treba imeti trde in nevarne škatle, saj torbo z lahkoto zatlačim za sedež. Pa tudi za zdaj povsem zaupam Ocoee torbi, da v primeru »plavanja«, ne bo spustila vode. Čeprav upam, da mi tega nikoli ne bo potrebno testirati..

tekst: Andraž Krpič