Newswear Mens Medium Chestvest (Black)

I am a vest wearer. I've had everything from el-cheapo to the highest quality professional grade vests. This so-called Chestvest is a change for me. A better description for it, I think, might be reverse fanny pack. The the quality of materials and workmanship of this Chestvest are of the highest quality. One of my old complaints about vests is that their pockets are never quite the right size for my stuff. The Chestvest pockets are uniformly sized and everything fits. There are no tall skinny pockets for pens and lens cleaners and no little square pockets for batteries and business cards. Everything fits, but It took me a while to build the muscle memory to go to the right pocket to get the item I wanted. The pockets are sealed by lots of Velcro. Lots of Velcro. If you are a photo-journalist covering a firefight in a war zone and trying to find cover from attacking enemy forces, you don't need to worry about your pockets coming open. But for me it's a bit much. After several months of use, I've gotten used to it. On each pocket there is a narrow strip with Velcro on only one side. I presume it's purpose is to cover some the the Velcro, but it would take more than one of these strips on each pocket to do the job. I still haven't figured out what they're for or how to use them. My main complaint is the design of the straps. The first couple of times I put my 70-200 lens in its pocket, it hurt. A lot. I think I must have had one of the straps twisted. Now I am very careful when donning this thing to make sure the straps are straight and untwisted. That's not so easy to get right in the dark. But I can carry 70-200 without complaint. The shoulder straps are too narrow for comfort. They really need wider pads on the shoulders. I tried adjusting the straps so that I could cinch the Chestvest around my waist and let my hips carry the load, but the shoulder straps aren't long enough for that. I even considered removing the shoulder straps. There also are two plastic slidey thingies on each strap, the kind of things that are used to adjust the length of straps, but that adjustment is accomplished by Velcro. I have no idea what these plastic clip things are for or how to use them. It took me quite a while to get used to the Chestvest. At first I considered returning it and or replacing it. But now I've adjusted and wear it without too much whining. In summary, materials and workmanship are excellent. The design needs improvement.