I arrived at Brazos Bend State Park in a good mood despite my pack weighing in at just over 41 pounds. That weight is without the 3 liters of water which comes in at an additional 6.6lbs, I had 1 liter left so that makes my pack weight a minimum of 44lbs (actually just shy of that) up to 48lbs. I will have to say that the F-stop Ajna pack handled the weight extremely well and I only noticed the weight when removing or putting on the pack, I really do love this pack.
I had the following gear in the pack.
Anyways………………….
It was really foggy driving in, which meant it was super humid and everything was wet. I had fully intended to include the 150/2 in this comparison but while switching from the SWD to the Little Tuna I dropped the Tuna, it ended up getting wet on both ends and never un-fogged while I had my subject in front of me. I actually had problems with all the lenses fogging up because I was having to lay them in the extremely wet grass. There were a few times I had to remove the lens hood and wait for the lens to un-fog before I could shoot because I couldn’t get them to un-fog with the hood on but needed the hood on the lens to keep the front element from getting wet when laying in the grass. I had actually tried getting into position on several other birds while dragging my pack behind me so I would have a dry place to put the lenses/camera not in use. After a number of failed attempts I changed my method and crawled into position on the Great Blue Heron I used for the comparison while carrying only two cameras with lenses attached. Once in position at the 41 foot distance I crawled back for the other two lenses, this tactic also worked when I moved to the 35 foot distance as well. But it also meant that I had to lay everything not in use on the wet grass. Because I was concerned with the weight of my pack I left out a lot of the little things I like to bring with me for those just in case situations when out shooting. One of those items is a small tarp I like to use when laying in really damp swamp mud to try and keep somewhat dry/clean. Was kicking myself the entire morning for leaving it behind because it would have been so very useful.
I had the following gear in the pack.
- EM1 /w grip
- EM1
- MZ 300mm f4.0 IS Pro
- MZ 75-300mm f4.8-6.7 II
- ZD 50-200 f2.8-3.5 SWD
- ZD 150mm f2.0
- MC-14
- EC-14
- EC-20
- Godox V860iiO
- Godox X1T-O
- 3D printed skimmer pod w/ ballhead
Anyways………………….
It was really foggy driving in, which meant it was super humid and everything was wet. I had fully intended to include the 150/2 in this comparison but while switching from the SWD to the Little Tuna I dropped the Tuna, it ended up getting wet on both ends and never un-fogged while I had my subject in front of me. I actually had problems with all the lenses fogging up because I was having to lay them in the extremely wet grass. There were a few times I had to remove the lens hood and wait for the lens to un-fog before I could shoot because I couldn’t get them to un-fog with the hood on but needed the hood on the lens to keep the front element from getting wet when laying in the grass. I had actually tried getting into position on several other birds while dragging my pack behind me so I would have a dry place to put the lenses/camera not in use. After a number of failed attempts I changed my method and crawled into position on the Great Blue Heron I used for the comparison while carrying only two cameras with lenses attached. Once in position at the 41 foot distance I crawled back for the other two lenses, this tactic also worked when I moved to the 35 foot distance as well. But it also meant that I had to lay everything not in use on the wet grass. Because I was concerned with the weight of my pack I left out a lot of the little things I like to bring with me for those just in case situations when out shooting. One of those items is a small tarp I like to use when laying in really damp swamp mud to try and keep somewhat dry/clean. Was kicking myself the entire morning for leaving it behind because it would have been so very useful.