The ideal camera bag is something most photographers search for. There is a survey going on over at Digital Photography School that asks people what camera bag is their favorite. Judging by the response people are giving there are a lot of options and there isn’t a clear winner.
I have personally researched and considered a lot of camera bags for a long time. I have come to the conclusion that there isn’t an ideal bag for me made by a camera bag company. Like most people I have a need for different bags in multiple situations. For most of those situations I haven’t found a bag that is ideal. I have to deal with carrying kids, lots of lighting gear, and lots of gear or just a little all depending on what the shooting situation is. For me there isn’t an ideal bag, but several that would be ideal.
I have three problems in general with the average camera bags available today.
- First, they cost a lot of money. It is true that some are coming down significantly in price and still offering great value.
- Second, the bags are often easily identifiable as camera bags. Nothing like advertising that your bag is worth a nice chunk of change (quite a few of you have bags of gear costing more than 5 figures, and in some cases perhaps closer to 6 figures).
- Camera bags don’t usually have a harness that can comfortably distribute the weight you put in the bag. This is especially the case with camera backpacks. I may have been spoiled by my extended use of high quality mountaineering bags in the past; they manage to provide great harnesses for carrying obscene weights comfortably.
So I have gone the route of using a mountaineering bag and a hip style bag for my camera bags. One is a very old Black Diamond bag that can carry a lot of gear easily. It isn’t a panel loading design like most camera bags, it is a top loader, but for me that isn’t something that’s a problem.
The other is a Mountainsmith lumbar bag that I use for shorter day type things. Both offer great weight carrying comfort and don’t advertise the fact that they are holding a lot of valuable gear. The problem is that carrying a tripod on any bag makes it easy for someone to put two and two together.
Overall both bags weigh less than 2 pounds, so they don’t add a lot of weight to the total you will have to carry.
Along with those two bags I have a much larger panel loading bag that I keep all my gear in and then pull out what I will need for a day or specific shoot. I would really like one of the think tank roller series bags for this but I haven’t gotten around to spending money on that just yet.
I use lens wraps to wrap each lens and piece of gear that needs padding, and have cut up an old closed cell foam pad to put in the bottom of each bag for the little extra padding that is needed. The nice thing about the wraps is that I can protect my gear with them in any place I want to put it. To keep things ordered with the lens wraps I bought several different colors. Then I put everything into wraps by color so I know what is in each color wrap by just looking at it and can easily pull out what I want.
That is how I manage my gear. Those two bags are great for carrying and organizing, and when there is extra room they can carry other stuff.
I really am regularly enticed by the variety of camera bags and things that they can do, and their almost sexy design (only in a few cases for that). In the end I look closely at what will work best and I am still using the mountaineering bag and the lumbar bags now 7 years later.
There are a few bags that I really like the idea of. To not come across as a camera bag hater here is a list of the camera bags that I like the most and links to information about them.
I have favorite mountaineering bag brands as well, so if your interested in this route check them out for what may work best for you.
What works for you? Do you change often? What is your favorite brand?
