Review of Mountainsmith Aurora II Camera Lumbar Pack

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my wife has a nikon D80. i thought this bag would be a perfect bag for going hiking so that she wouldnt have to carry a backpack to take off every time she wanted to take a picture. with this she can keep the camera on her hip and pull it out when desired.

The only things we dont like about the bag are that it is a little small for a DSLR with an extra lens. it works...but its tight. i also bought her the extended grip battery pack which makes things tigher...but once again...we have made it work. other than the tight fit...the velcro on the adjustable partitions inside is a little weak.

all in all, the quality is very good. if my wife is hiking, she may just learn to start carrying one lens. for the 30 bucks i spent...i dont think we could have done any better.

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I had high expectations for this bag but ended up returning it immediately. The zippers would stick and the velco dividers on the interior did not hold very well. My 23 year old Lowepro bag is better made. However, the hip belt is well designed and hugs your body very well. In concept the bag is good but the assembly and sub-standard materials fail to make this product useful. I would stick with M-Rock, Lowepro or Tamrac, those bags are designed and used by the professionals. I believe Tamrac is still made in the USA. It would be a shame to miss a shot because your camera bag zipper got stuck. I can't recommend this product.

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This is a very well made pack but, there is no way a DSLR with a small zoom or prime could fit in this pack. That includes APC and full frame sensors. Pros, forget about this one.

It might hold one of the smaller DSLRs made by Sony Alpha (A33, A55), Panasonic Lumix, Samsung, and maybe Olympus. It could easily hold the smaller rangefinder cameras made by Leica, Panasonic, Sony Alpha NEX, Pentax, and Olympus. Point and shoot, would be OK.

Regardless, in the images of the pack, it shows the shoulder strap clasp (the clip sewn to the bag that the strap attaches to) as being on the side of the bag just below the main compartment zipper. But the current model you will get has the clasp sewn INSIDE the webbed exterior pockets. This makes the outside pockets less usable and unusable for small water bottles or really anything you might want to put in it. Like a small PET water bottle or one or two 16 oz Nalgen HDPE Round Loop-Top Bottles the smaller version of the larger size Nalgene water bottles.

Also, the top lid has a metal zipper component that goes down on the back side of the camera or a lens you might have in the bag. Placing a metal zipper right over the camera LCD screen or even just on the camera or worse, a lens, is really bad design!

This is a nicely made bag for a good price but, I think Mountainsmith actually has NO pro photographers or even enthusiast photographers actually test out or review bag designs. This is bag that could be great if it was just bigger enough to actually hold something like a Sony A700 (and its replacement), Nikon D300S/D5000, and similar models from other makers. It does not need to hold a Nikon D3X (full frame top of the line pro DSLR with a grip). But if it could at least hold gripless APC size gear, it would be a big improvement.

Also, get the strap clasp out of the side pockets and watch where the metal zippers are going! Nobody wants a $2000 (or $300) camera or $3000 (or $300) lens damaged by the pack that is supposed to protect it.

Honest reviews on Mountainsmith Aurora II Camera Lumbar Pack

This pack works perfect with my HV30 camcorder. I use it without the dividers and the camcorder fits just right. I use the other pockets for spare tapes and batteries. Very compact and well made.

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I chose this camera bag based on its measurements and shape, planning to use it with the shoulder strap rather than the hip belt. However, I discovered that folding the hip belt into the space provided made it too cumbersome, and I had to just cut it off. Other than that I like it very much. The zippered compartments work well for extra memory cards, batteries, lens cloth, etc. It is well padded, and the movable dividers allowed me to create a space to fit my Canon PowerShot SX20IS exactly. I also like the fact that it has a handle to use in place of the removable shoulder strap, if I wish to do so. I had to go to the Mountainsmith site to find the internal measurements to insure this bag would fulfill my needs. (Earlier, I had ordered another smaller model and incorrectly estimated the internal measurement based on the external measurements.)