I’ve had a messenger bag as my photography bag for most of my amateiur photographer career for the past 15 years. They are stylish and I fit everything in.
But now I feel when I have it on my the whole day my neck afterwards hurt a lot on the one side, like really a lot.
I mostly take my camera with me when we go travel with the family, we have two children and I have to carry the little one constantly.
This leads to me sometimes not to bring my camera because it’s just to hurtful. And then I regret it every time I look at the phone pictures.
I guess it’s time for a travel camera backpack …
Edit: I have a lot of things to carry, the Sony A7C body, a 35mm f1.8, a 70-200 f4, and a small cheap pancake lens. Then strong usb-c charger which I use for charging phone, camera and laptop. Sometimes I bring the laptop also.
I have done a lot of travel photography. With my partner we each carry one body and 2-3 lenses on a typical trip. I much prefer pouches or a padded insert inside a conventional bag. You get a lot of flexibility and unobtrusiveness with this setup. And the downsides of more fiddly lens changes and slightly less protection are worth it to us.
Tamrac Goblin pouches weigh almost nothing and give a bit of padding. That’s what we keep our gear in, while carrying a quality backpack or shoulder bag. I also tend to travel with a small soft cooler bag. We use that for picnics and keeping food fresh between accommodations, but it also works great for extra padding for long travel legs.
Multipurpose solutions keep the weight down.
I toasted an IS motor in a 70-200 2.8 III on a hike in Norway with a lightly padded insert :/ it’s repaired now, but do proceed with caution if you’re on rough terrain
Yeah, that’s a lot of mass. We shoot with wide to short-telephoto primes. The biggest lens in my bag is <400g with a 67mm filter thread. It’s pretty easy to keep them safe, even on rough trails.
Would you mind going into more detail on this? How did the motor get damaged?
As best as I can tell, vibration and shock despite being in the pack surrounded by a padded insert and clothing. I will say, the body was installed on the lens for the duration for quick access. The main knowledge I have here is that it worked fine when I was on top of the fjord, and had a grinding noise the following day when I made it down the fjord. The AF performance was degraded significantly and the IS functionality seemed to one work in one direction from that point forward. No drops were sustained to body, lens, or pack. Odda to Trolltunga is quite steep for a portion, and quite rocky for the remainder.
As a beginner I had only one lens (tamron 28-200) and a a7c so it was compact enough to fit in a hip bag from a motorcycle gear shop. Pretty comfy.
Now that I have multiple lenses I just tried a messenger bag and quickly get the neck pain. So I’m also thinking about a backpack and keeping the hip bag depending on the journey.
I use a sling bag similar to this but a different brand. It goes over the shoulder with one strap but you can snap it in front and wear it comfortably like a backpack.
I’ve used it for hiking and just walking around with my camera. I can fit the camera with lens on plus a small spare lens and a few accessories like extra batteries and cards. It even fit inside my carry-on when I flew intentionally this summer.
I’ve turned to using this: https://a.co/d/4VGMf1r
Really? While hiking and going on trains and airplanes, etc? Or just in your hometown by car?
I really recommend the Wandrd Prvke camera backpacks.
I’ve had mine (21 L i think) for a bit over a year and I love it. I have it for my work laptop and I always bring my camera with me. This has been my every day backpack and it has been great for that purpose. Packing light, I can go for weekend trips with it and still bring some camera gear. The roll top is great for expanding capacity when needed but otherwise keeping the bag small.
