How many camera bags is too many?
Ok, so I may own a fair few camera bags. It’s a problem, especially in my wife’s estimation. Why, and which is best?
I' should add at this point, I am receiving no incentives from any manufacturers.
My biggest bag can take a significant amount of kit.
I accept, I have a bit of a thing for a new camera bag. I currently own 4, having had a number of others over the years.
Why do I have 4?
For me they all serve different functions.
My smallest bag is a Peak Design everyday sling, 10L. This is my about town and short walk bag. The sling shape really helps for blending in, when walking with a big camera rucksack may seem conspicuous. It also allows you to grab the camera out without having to take the bag off, which can be really handy in various situations.
It takes a camera with lens on, plus a couple of other lenses. I use it regularly for little times out with a camera, and for shoots where I only need a few smaller lenses, such as a couple of primes and one zoom.
I find it really useful and most recently had it out for some shots whilst out walking on the beach.
My sling meant I could get the camera out without putting the bag down on the wet sandy beach
My next bag is a Lowepro Protactic 350AW. This is a relatively small backpack, and was bought specifically for a safari trip to Botswana.
The reason for this is that I had various flights to go on, with different airlines, all of which had different carry on bag sizes. Flying with camera equipment is obviously very stressful, given the alst thing I would want is for my camera bag to end up in the hold. As such I wanted a bag that would meet carry on requirements no mater what, so I chose this bag.
It has been really handy since. It has hard casing on the top, and despite being small, has enough space for a telephoto zoom, a general purpose zoom and a wide angle zoom, a perfect trio for a safari trip. I am planning to use this again for a trip to patagonia I am taking next month.
The small camera bag was really useful for fitting into the safari vehicles and being stuffed under seats
My most used camera bag has to be my hiking camera bag. I have a Lowepro powder 500AW. It is an amazing bag, with a specialised, customisable camera gear section, that I have kitted out to fit my drone, wide angle lens, camera with 24-120 general purpose lens and some spare batteries and filters. Along with this it has a large top section that I use for storing other gear. This is the bag I use for mountain hiking, and can easily fit extra layers, waterproofs, food, has a specialised water pocket, and has external attachements for gear such as ice axe.
This bag has been to the top of over 100 munros with me over the last 2 years, and I would not trade it for anything else for this use.
My hiking camera bag has made it to a number of munro summits
My last and largest bag is a Lowepro pro trekker 650 AW, and is the bag in the image at the top of this post.
This is my ‘I need everything’ bag. It can swallow a huge amount of camera gear. When I may be out all day, doing video as well as photo, this allows me to take multiple cameras, multiple lenses, tripod, drone and gimbal. It doesnt see a huge amount of use, but when it does, I am super happy to have it, as there wouldnt be another way of getting so much kit to remote banksides for filming kayaking etc.
On each of these bags I use a peak design capture clip which allows me to have my camera attached extenreally and within easy reach - I cannot reccommend these enough to anyone wanting to have their camera handy without having to drop their bag every time they want to take a photo.
