What is the perfect bag for me?

[BryceEsquerre]

Hi everybody. I'm having alot of trouble deciding on a bag to buy myself for christmas! I currently have a lowepro sling bag and i HATE it with a passion. It's painful to use and is way too small.

What i would like to be able to comfortably carry around:


Nikon F4s
Nikkor 70-210
maybe some more nikkor lenses
Nikkor AF 50mm 1.8 D
Nikkor AF Zoom 28-85mm f/3.5
Canonet 17 or Rollei 35s
D7000 with grip
light meter
spare batteries and sd cards
maybe a flash or 2 eventually
manuals
water bottle
manfrotto 190xdb with 804rc2
cable release
gray card + an ipad (possibly)

I've been looking at plenty of reviews on different bags and can't really find what i like. Also i am a big strong boy so i can carry plenty.


Considering:

Tenba Shootout Medium (or should i go large) (gets great reviews but again questionable regarding tripod)
Domke ProPack 418 (cannot find a single review)
Lowepro Flipside 400 (i love the design on this one but im not sure if my tripod will go well with it, mixed reviews on comfort)



Please someone make some suggestions or give me some feedback!

 

[Danielle]

I can tell you backpacks are a lot more comfortable to carry around while out and about.

I have a commercial aw lowepro bag which I personally prefer. Its great being really big (can fit a medium format and two 35mm bodies with several lenses for instance), but being a shoulder bag also pretty much a dead weight. The commercial aw isn't available anymore, but the same kind of thing is. I've forgotten the name of the new version. Apparently the new ones can even take a laptop in the top compartment. But unless you seriously need the space, I'd recommend a smaller bag if your going to wander around a lot with it.

 

[bdial]

That's a lot of stuff, and it looks like you may have some duplications, for example the zooms, so you may want to consider more than one bag, one a little smaller than the other perhaps. Put the stuff you use most in one, and then a larger one that either takes everything or just the leftovers. I would probably just carry the tripod, IMHO strapping a tripod to the bag makes the bag hard to handle and gets in the way of working with the tripod. A lot depends on how you want to work though, if you're carrying a bunch of gear to get to a location where you'll set up for a while a pack with the tripod lashed to it wouldn't be so bad. In urban settings with a shoulder bag, it's a problem.

I recently bought a Tamrac Summit backpack bag, for my view camera. It's smallish compared to many backpacks but it could take the stuff you've laid out, if you add some of the accessory pockets they make. I've not used it very much as yet, but so far I like it a lot. It would let you a "bigger/smaller" approach by using it with or without added pockets.

Generally I prefer shoulder bags, but for what you've listed you would need very sturdy shoulders. You could consider a Domke F2 which is probably a little small to take everything, especially to include the iPad, but might be good for the F4 and several lenses and misc. stuff.
They also make larger ones. Lowepro makes some nice shoulder bags too, my oldest bag is a Lowe that houses my Nikon kit, I forget whch model but it has lasted through much use and abuse, it's about the same size as the Domke.

I've been looking for the "perfect" bag for a long, long time. So far, all I've come up with are several that work pretty well. Perfect for me would be one that can take everythng I own, weigh no more than 1 pound loaded, fits under an airline seat with room for my feet, and can be laid out so I can reach anything I need by feel, plus doesn't cost more than maybe 25 USD. I'll probably be looking for a long time to come

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Look at one of the ThinkTank backpack type bags. They're pricey, but they'll have separate compartments to store and protect your iPad/laptop (with separate outside access so you don't have to go rooting through all your camera gear to access your iPad).