List Price: $135.00
Sale Price: $122.16
Today's Bonus: 10% Off
I already own a couple of camera bags of differing sizes, but I ordered this one to take on a trip to Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand to carry carry camera gear as well as my tablet computer, which saves me one bag. Let me first address what this bag is NOT. This is not some sort of magic steamer chest into which you can pour tons of gear and have it weigh nothing if that is what you are looking for buy a steamer chest and a trolley. You won't be able to put every cable, charger, manual, filter and so on for both your laptop and camera gear into this bag however that is not it's intended purpose.
What this bag IS good for is as a day bag to carry your essential gear for the day, while leaving the various support paraphenalia in your hotel/base camp/whatever. It will happilly carry a DSLR with lens attached (in my case a Canon Eos 60D with EF-S 50-135mm lens), as well as two other lenses (in mine there's an EF-S 10-22 wide angle and an EF 50mm prime) and a laptop up to 15" (I use a Motorola Xoom) in an interior pocket, as well as a few filters. It has elastic pockets on either side near the base which could be used for (relativley slim) water bottles, however I use one for my small-ish (4' when extended) tripod along with the supplied shock cord "bungee" to attach the tripod to a loop near the top. If you wish to carry an external flash you'll need to either sacrifice one of your lenses or have it floating around free in the bag. My Canon Speedlite 430 is too long to fit into the lens "bays" without the camera sitting on it so I elected to have it floating loose inside the bag, in it's pouch of course. The front pocket of the bag is fairly small but I'm able to fit the cables, camera charger, and remote shutter into it as well as maybe a couple of biros, however I don't intend to be carrying these when out and about. Two minor things this bag lacks is somewhere appropriate to secure a decent size flash, and a couple of dedicated pockets for memory cards. I'm considering having a bungee of some sort attached internally to keep the flash from bouncing around will make it one step closer to perfect.
The bag itself appears to be ruggedly constructed of quite tough material and although it lacks a rain cover it appears to be reasonably water resistant, at least enough to keep your gear dry for a few minutes in a shower while you look for someplace under cover. Waterproof to ten metres it's not, but again that's not the purpose of this bag. Stitching appears to be strong, the shoulder straps are padded and back of it has three firm pads to cushion it against your back. I've put more gear in it than I will actually take, and with a 6kg load it feels quite light and comfortable on my back. It's adequately padded all around to protect your gear from normal knocks and bumps. The zippers are a little stiff when new but they may loosen up with use stiff zippers are not such a bad thing when trying to get through a crowded market place in a third world country while you carry gear worth four years local wages behind you either, and it's for that reason that I shall probably be removing the little cord "tags" attached to the zippers. As well as the two shoulder straps for using as a back pack the bag also has a handle at the top (great for getting in and out of cars, airports, and so on) as well as what appears to be a camera strap with some decent plastic clips that can be attached to wear the bag as a sling bag. The main bag opening covers about 2/3 of "back" and curving up to the top, with the flap opening downwards. The camera and lens compartments are in the lower 1/3 of the bag so it can be opened standing on it's base or lieing on it's back without gear falling out. The base itself is the same tough nylon material with some sort of stiffening behind it, but lacks any hard feet or similar to stand on so it may not stand up well to being dragged about, however how often does one need to drag a small backback?
One thing I found frustrating about purchasing this from Amazon (and it's not really Amazon's fault) is the lack of images online. Amazon have used the images supplied by the manufacturer, and they only supply three external images and no internal ones at all (even on their own website). If this was a regular backpack that would be fine as the inside would just be empty space, but as a camera bag I really wanted to see the internal compartments and pockets so that I could imagine where my gear would fit, and even better if there were internal images showing "typical" DSLR gear in it, as many other manufacturers do.
Overall while this is not the "be all and end all, ultimate computer and camera bag" it certainly fills a purpose. There's no such thing as a "perfect-for-all-occasions bag", which is why so many of us end up with several bags. If you wish to carry a normal amount of gear and a small laptop for a few hours before returning to your main base this is a great option as it leaves your hands free while keeping your gear close. Be careful who's standing behind you, don't stand still too long, and consider some small padlocks on the zippers if you'll be in crowded areas, as this is a weakness of all backpack type camera bags.
No comments:
Post a Comment