Product Review: Lowepro Camera Bags

A few weeks ago, Lowepro sent out a couple of their bags for me to use and abuse, starting with my cross-country drive (trip summary here, by the way). I do a lot of traveling, and my existing solutions were getting a little tedious.

The Way it Was

Before I get into the Lowepro, let me talk about the way I’ve been doing this. Now, here’s the thing… I’ve got the bag gene. (Truth be told, I’ve got the bag-and-shoe gene, but that’s another discussion.) I love camera and computer bags, and have gone through a somewhat ludicrous number of them in my life. From backpacks to rollers, from hard to soft, big to small, I’ve had quite the variety. Naturally every bag has a unique purpose and need (i.e., excuse to buy), and so it’s rare that I get rid of an older bag, because “you never know when you’ll have THAT need again”.

It’s a sickness. I know.

The Hard Case

Several years ago when I went to shoot for two weeks in the desolate Rift Valley in Kenya, I picked up a Pelican case. I wanted something that was dust and water proof, and that I could put in checked luggage. I knew I’d be carrying too much gear to carry it all on board with me, so I filled a carry-on with critical gear and the Pelican with everything else, and trusted it to the gods of checked luggage (and ironically enough, it did get lost… between New York and San Francisco on the way home. It made it to the bush and back, but it couldn’t cross the country without disappearing for a day… *sigh*). And I loved that solution, and used it for many years. It was very comforting to be able to travel with a bag that when I was told I couldn’t hand carry it (which mostly happened on international flights, not US domestic), I could check it without (too much) worry. And as my gear and paranoia grew, I started stuffing a smaller bag with critical gear inside the Pelican, which I could extract and hand-carry if the gate agents were in a persnickety mood and insisted my toys rode with the common luggage.

But that Pelican got tedious. It’s big. It’s heavy. And it’s hard. I have many bruises on the back of my legs or shins from bumping into it. I do like that I could stand on it to get a higher view, but the truth is it was a cumbersome, literally painful piece of gear to carry around. Great for flying, not so great once you landed.

The Backpack

Before I left to shoot Seal on tour through Europe last year, I bought a new bag. I ended up with a massive ThinkTang bag that had one fatal flaw—no wheels. I quite literally hurt myself carrying that bag around. I bought it because I thought having a backpack that held all my gear would be great for going between the tour bus, hotels and concert venues. And it was. If it was empty. But fill that thing up, and there goes your back. So, I retired that bag after the tour, went back to the Pelican, and have been looking for a replacement solution ever since.

The Interim

I’ve had a few smaller bags, including a small Crumpler backpack (great for a laptop, one body and lens, and some stuff), and most recently the Boda Lens Bag, which is a very well designed piece of kit (body off the lens, and a few additional lenses, no laptop). But I was never really happy with any solution I’d found.

Until now.

The Solution

Enter Lowepro. My friend and occasional TWiP guest Catherine Hall is sponsored by them and a huge fan, and she gets credit for turning me on to these bags. And keep in mind, it’s not like Lowepro is a new company. I remember selling these bags when I was 16 and working at Paul’s Photo in Torrance, CA. I went through their collection at PMA earlier this year, and occasionally found myself trolling their website looking for the right bag. And really, what I need are two bags. One larger, carry-it-all, ROLLER bag, with a backpack option would be nice, that can carry a ton of stuff including my laptop. And be carry-on cool. And another, smaller, carry-around-town bag that I could take on photo walks, or just meandering around town carrying more than a single body and lens. And if it had the added bonus of being able to store my laptop, for those trips where I don’t want/need to carry the big bag, all the better!

My finds: the ProRunner x450 AW [$289.95 on Amazon.com] and Classified Sling 220 AW [$149.95 on Amazon.com]. I’ll review the Sling in a future article.

ProRunner x450 AW

This is the big daddy of bags from Lowepro. It’ll hold a pro dSLR (meaning one with a battery grip attached, or the larger pro cameras like the Canon 1D series or Nikon D3 series), and even with a 300mm f/2.8 attached. A ton of lenses and other gear. Your laptop. And a tripod strapped to the outside. It has a retractable handle for wheeling it over any distance, and the wheels are fantastic, roller-blade style gliders. The AW in the name means All Weather, which really just means that it includes the cover that wraps around the bag. (I’d like to see it gain the weather-sealed zippers that are on the Boda bag, which does a lot for your peace of mind when trekking through the rain.) The laptop goes into a thin pouch in the front, in its own shoulder bag, which means it can be whipped out and carried separately. This will undoubtedly help get the bag into smaller overhead compartments, and the theory is, get the bag on board international flights at all. Lowepro makes no promises there of course, and certainly that restriction is often up to the mood of the security/gate agent/person standing between you and home, but your odds are improved tremendously when the bag is suddenly a few inches thinner.

Lowepro x450 with laptop bag inserted

Lowepro x450 with laptop bag removed

Of course if I go to board a plane and they insist the x450 can’t come on board with me, I’ll have to get a little pushy. Because now that I’ve gone soft, I can’t very well let this get manhandled down below. On that note, I did recently have a gate agent insist on taking my bag and putting it below (not the Lowepro), and simultaneously insisting that I sign a form releasing them of liability. I refused to sign, and eventually they relented and let me on board with the bag. Go figure.

I did pull out the backpack straps and carry it around once or twice that way. I wouldn’t want to do that all the time, but that’s not anything to do with the bag. Frankly I’d suggest that straps may not be needed at all, and they do add bulk to the bag (about 2″ from what I can see), but then again I did ask for the backpack roller bag. I wonder if they make this without the straps? Anyway, the system for tucking away the straps is quite clever, although it does take some work to get the straps in. And I can’t seem to ever quite get the waist belt to stay tucked away, which is a little annoying, but it’s not too bad. Some instructions on just how to tuck all the straps away would have been welcome; I mostly just pushed and pulled until I mostly got it.

Lowepro x450 with backpack straps in position

Lowepro x450 with backpack straps being put away

Lowepro x450 with backpack waist-strap put away

Actually, that’s fair to say for the bag at large (and all bags, really). It’s rare that you get a complete instruction set, even with a complex bag like this one. And you may be thinking “it’s a bag… how hard can it be”, but the designers have put a LOT of thought into every little strap, every connector, every strip of Velcro. Not one thing on this bag is there by accident, and I’d love to know what the designers had in mind when they added that little pocket, or that little loop, or how they intended you to store the thingy in the whatsit. Other than wasting time figuring it out on my own, I might be missing something really cool!

The organization system inside is fairly standard, and the intention is for the body-with-lens-attached to go at the top of the bag, pointing down. There’s room at the bottom for another one facing up (lenses squaring off), but the padding doesn’t really accommodate. I found it more practical to remove the lens and store the second body sans-glass. But I’d prefer to have both bodies ready to go, lenses attached. I’m not saying it can’t work that way, but it really wasn’t designed for it.

Lowepro x450 internal organization system

The semi-transparent pouches in the lid are handy, but could be more transparent. It’s pretty hard to see what’s in there without opening them first.

Lowepro x450 internal "transparent" pouches

There are two little pouches for CF cards. On one hand it’s not enough; anyone carrying this much gear will have more cards than that. But on the other hand, anyone with this much gear probably has a dedicated card holder anyway.

Lowepro x450 memory card holders

The tripod attaching system is great, but part of it is a removable, hard, not flexible, so not easy to store, “pocket” thing. I didn’t find anywhere to store it, so it ended up somewhere else in my luggage. Then when I needed to attach my tripod to the bag, I didn’t have all the parts. So that, IMHO, could use a little redesign.

Lowepro x450 with tripod attached

Lowepro x450 tripod "foot" holder — once removed, where do you put it?

I really like how all the straps (tripod, compression, etc) have a lock on them to hold them in place once you tighten it. Makes loosening them really easy, and while I haven’t had to do this yet, I’d imagine working this with cold, gloved hands would be quite easy.

Lowepro x450 locking straps

The handles on the top and side are large and rubbery and easy to grab and hold; great for just carrying or for hoisting the bag above your head. My TUMI roller suitcase has a perfect handle on the bottom of the bag for hoisting it into overhead compartments—I could see that being added here. And there’s room for it; there’s already two big feet on the bottom of the bag, and a handle could easily go between them.

Lowepro x450 top handle (similar one on the side)

Lowepro x450 bottom — plenty of room for a handle here, too

The telescoping handle is easy to eject and put away, has a nice rubbery grip on it, and feels good in your hand.

Lowepro x450 telescoping handle

Lowepro x450 telescoping handle fully extended

The rain cover is great. I had to quickly pull the cover out on both bags when I was set up on a tripod shooting the sunrise in Little Rock, and the sprinklers came on. Genius.

Lowepro x450 rain cover peeking out of built-in storage pouch

Lowepro x450 rain cover full engaged

Lowepro x450 rain cover wraps around the telescoping handle

Lowepro x450 rain cover attaches to the back so it can't blow off

The computer bag is nothing more than a padded zippered pouch with a shoulder strap on it. I rather wish that it had at least a stretch single pocket over the front, so I could stuff a power supply in there. If I could put a few additional things in the laptop bag, then it’s feasible that I could travel with just this Lowepro bag, and take my laptop to meeting where I don’t need to carry my gear, using the built-in bag. But as it is, I can’t carry anything else in it, so unless it’s winter and I’m wearing a coat full of pockets, I’m probably going to have to carry another computer bag anyway. Bummer.

Lowepro x450 (somewhat limited) laptop case

Finally, the skin on this thing. It’s standard issue, black ballistic nylon. Which I can appreciate is really tough and durable and there’s a reason every bag manufacturer on the planet uses the same stuff. But really. Really? Can’t we get some variety? My absolute favorite bag ever is a laptop bag made by Timbuk2, and that’s primarily because of the material. It’s a brown waxed canvas (or maybe not, but that’s what I think it is), and it’s gorgeous. I’ve carried that bag for probably close to five years, and it’s worn around the edges in all the right ways, and it looks fantastic.

Conclusion

I really appreciate this bag. It’s been very well thought out, and while it may not be perfect, it’s well on it’s way. Once I start flying with it (so far it’s just accompanied me on a cross-country drive), I’ll have more opinions to add and will update this entry. I’m going to Thailand in November; that should be a good test.

Part of what makes this bag work on a larger scale for me is that there’s a second bag accompanying it. While I’d bring this bag on a big shoot, I would likely also want a smaller bag for photo walks, doing the tourist thing, etc. In my case that’s the Classified Sling 220 AW. I’ll write up a review on that separately.

ProRunner x450 AW
$289.95 on Amazon.com
Manufacturer web page

-Joseph @ApertureExpert