Camera Bag

[SuperJ]

Hey,
This is my first post so i hope its in the right spot. Im looking for a camera bag to take out boarding on the mountain with me. It needs to fit a single camera body with a somwhat large lense attatched plus a flash some filters an extra lense or two and have a tripod attachment. My biggest concerns are water resistance, accessability and not having to take it off when i get on the lift or bulkyness. I have looked at the Tamrac Adventure 6 Backpack and a few sling bags. I wanna keep the price below 100 bucks. Any input you guys have would be awesome.

-Jeff

[Photo-John]

Jeff-
This is a subject close to my heart. I've been mountain biking with a camera for years and have tried all kinds of backpacks and other bags. Two things you're asking for seem problematic to me - the price and the size. I haven't had a backpack yet that I could wear on a lift. And the good ones I've had always cost more than $100. Hydration is also a key factor for me. It's a necessity.

I have a friend who I believe uses the Tamrac Adventure 6 for mountain biking with his SLR. I'll see if I can get him to post here. My favorite packpacks have been the Deuter Superbike hydration pack, with a small camera bag inside, and the Lowepro Dryzone Rover. The Deuter fits great, has a nice big hydration bladder, and holds a fair amount of gear. I have a little Tamrac hip pack I put inside with my SLR and an extra lens. If I want to take a 70-200 f/2.8 lens, I wrap it up in a shirt or something and cram it in, too. However, I've blown out the zippers on two Deuters and I'm thinking of getting the next larger size. The Deuter isn't waterproof but last year I did two days of skiing with it and had no problems with my gear getting wet. One day was pretty warm, too. I don't think water-resistance is as important as most people believe it to be.

When I want to take tons of gear on the bike (or the slopes), I take the Lowepro. I also gave it a "Photo-John's Pick" [urlhttp://www.photographyreview.com/choiceawardscrx.aspx]Choice Award[/url] for 2006. I've been telling camera bag makers I wanted a camera-specific hydration pack for years. And Lowepro was the first company to step up and do it. The bag isn't perfect, but it's still great. It holds a ton of gear and rides very, very well. I recently did a 26 mile ride with the Lowepro, carrying my Digital Rebel XTi, 70-200 f/2.8L, Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8, Canon EF-S 10-22mm, 550EX flash, radio slaves, extra batteries and memory cards, extra clothes and food, 50 ounces of water in the bladder, and a backup bottle of water. I don't believe there's another backpack that would have allowed me to carry that stuff safely and comfortably on my bike, in technical terrain.

There's a and innovative backpack from Think Tank Photo that you might also be interested in. I have one but haven't really had a chance to give it a good test yet. It's called the Rotation 360 and it has a sort of rotating hip pack that you can unlatch from the backpack and rotate to the front, without taking off the pack. I've tried it and it works great. The idea is that we miss photos because we can't get to our camera fast enough, or we don't feel like taking off the backpack. It's really a great idea. My only problem with it is I absolutely require a hydration system when I'm riding. But it might work great for you. It's not huge but it will hold a lot of gear, including long lenses. I believe it was designed to carry a 300mm f/2.8.

By the way, welcome to the site! I hope you'll stick around and share with us. I started doing some ski stuff last year and would love to have some more serious snow sports photographers here. You should also check out the sports forum.

Happy New Year!

[SuperJ]

thank you very much. Im going to look into the rotation360. This bag will also be used for cycling (assuming north star opens back up) :thumbsup: .

-Jeff