From LowePro.
When I sold my Rollei medium format film gear the LowePro bag in which it was stored was sold also. Way too large for anything I would contemplate in terms of equipment given the Canon 5D’s more compact size.
I finally got around to deciding on a new bag for the 5D gear and settled on the LowePro Mini-Trekker AW. LowePro has such a huge selection of products that it’s not easy finding what suits your needs best and though they have a selection aide on their site it’s not as good as it could be.
I narrowed it down knowing that I wanted a comfortable backpack design for trekking through the woods and aware that a handful of lenses, a ring flash, a few spare CF cards, batteries and the 5D’s instruction book (yes, I still get lost in all those menus and buttons sometimes) would be my companions on such trips.
Loaded for bear
In the above configuration, reading clockwise from the top left: 85mm/1.8, 15mm fisheye, 24-105mm L, 5D/200 L, 100mm macro, 50/1.4, 20mm, ringflash. I use UV filters on all lenses (except the fisheye whose bulbous front element precludes the use of a filter) so have need of only one lens cap – for the fishy. Alternatively, I can exclude any one lens and mount the 400mm f/5.6 L on the camera instead. It fits nicely with the lens hood collapsed. A neat attached fold-out plastic cover makes the whole thing weather resistant and quality is top notch – a notable feature of LowePro bags. It comes in green or black (ugh!), does not scream ‘Steal Me’ and has external straps and a supporting pocket for a tripod. (I prefer a shoulder bag for the tripod to spread the load and use a Tamrac for my 30 year old Linhof tripod). Add the QD sternum and waist straps, included, and you have something clearly thought through at the design stage by a working photographer. As I want for nothing gear wise, this bag should have a long and useful life ahead of it.
LowePro’s site asks for $182 for one of these which is ridiculous. I bought mine on ePrey for $120 delivered, new with all OEM instructions, labels, what-have-you.
By the way, here’s my old one with the Rollei 6003 kit:
A throwback to the bad old days of film
The scale is different, but the old bag was some 50% larger than the Mini-Trekker.
As usual, I find that all those zippers need some breaking in but once you get over that the bag is as user friendly as these things can ever be.
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