I’ve accumulated a fair amount of photographic equipment over the past eight or so years. Before we moved house this wasn’t too much of an issue, I had a couple of good sized rooms dedicated to my office workspace with ample storage. Since we moved house a couple of years ago, my office space has been drastically reduced. It’s reduced to the point where my desk now takes up 50% of the space available.

With the space constraints I now face in my office, I had to look for alternative storage solutions for the equipment I’ve amassed. As my desk now takes up the majority of the space (although it is a fairly large desk) I needed some storage that would fit underneath the desk to make the most use of this space.

After some hunting around, I found some relatively cheap plastic storage drawers that were small enough to fit underneath but wide enough to be of use. The storage I settled on can be seen in the image below and can purchased from Wilko for £25

Once I’d decided on the storage unit, I’d need something to organise the contents. The drawers themselves have no partitioning inside and in order to keep everything organised I needed some way of compartmentalising each drawer. This proved slightly more difficult than I anticipated. After a few hours of googling, I came up with what looked like the most suitable option.

These drawer organisers from Ikea are designed for clothing (ties, socks etc) but they work really well for camera bodies and lenses. The only downside with them is if you want to use them for smaller items. As they are designed to fold up to allow them to be stored flat, the dividers do not seal each compartment. This means if you put smaller or flat items in them they have a tendency to slide underneath the dividers and move between compartments.

For other, smaller items I purchased the separate box set of six individual boxes.  These can all be placed in the same drawer but the contents are not able to slide between compartments. which make them ideally suited to smaller items. These drawer organisers served me very well for a few years, then just recently I came across something that looked even better while browsing the amazon website for something else. Depending on your budget, you may be better with the option above, 

I’ve been a long time fan of Think Tank Photo products and already own several of their bags. While looking for another one of these, I came across a storage solution from SKB Cases. There are industrial grade hard cases designed for all types of equipment including photo and video gear. The inserts are designed and manufactured by Think Tank Photo. These inserts can be purchased separately or you can buy the whole case as a storage and transportation solution.

I’ve only recently received the insert and It fits nicely in to the storage drawers and leaves a little room around the outside to slot larger items like filter pouches or the platypod mini tripod.

So far, I’m very pleased with the insert, it’s infinitely configurable in the same way as most camera bags and allows me to store more lenses than the Ikea organiser. It’s made to the same high standards as the all the other Think Tank products. It also offers more protection and padding. It also has the added bonus of being usable with the hard case.

As I said previously, it will depend on your budget and if you’re likely to ever purchase the hard cased as to whether these more expensive inserts are for you.

Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read this.

Have a good one!