My quest for the perfect camera bag is well known, not least to the Lady, who just yesterday was buried under a deluge of canvas and ripstop nylon when she opened the hallway closet. The problem with carrying camera gear is that every situation needs a different solution. Sometimes you need to carry everything. Other times, just a camera and maybe a spare lens. The Lowepro Toploader series is designed to take just one camera and its attached lens, and the folks at Lowepro sent over the Pro 65AW for us to test out.
A lot of the time I want to go out shooting but I don’t want to take a big bag along. The Toploader fits a big DSLR and a short zoom. Here you see it with a Nikon D700 and an 85mm ƒ1.8 Nikkor, complete with rather large metal lens-hood, although it will actually accommodate a D3 or D700 with a battery grip, and of course any other brand of the same size.
The bag is meant to be worked out of. There’s a pair of zippers with cord loops to close it, but when in use you can just clip it shut with a plastic clasp for fast access. The entire top opens up to allow you to grab the camera, and the lip on the right side, where your camera’s grip will be, is slightly lower than the rest of the rim to allow easier grabbing.
You’ll also find an array of pockets. There are two zippered compartments, one on top with extra memory card slots in the lid, and one on the side. Both of these have a mesh pocket, too, for batteries or anything else that might easily tumble out. In addition there is one stretchy patch-pocket with no zipper. I used this for my cellphone. The pockets are big enough to be useful (filters, notebooks and a wallet all fit fine) but tight enough not to bulk up the bag too much.
This last is important, and for once Lowepro has struck the right balance between protection and size. Every Lowepro bag I have tested or bought has been amply padded and I have never worried when dropping one onto a hard floor. The problem, though, is that they can be bulky and heavy. The Toploader isn’t tiny, but it is small enough to stay out of the way.
The comfort extends to the straps, although if you are filling it with a couple of kilos of gear it’s going to hurt after a while, something no shoulder bag can fix. The shoulder strap uses two strong metal carabiner-style clips to fix onto two hoops. This also means you can remove the strap and put the Toploader into a bigger bag, say arucksack.
The bit which really made me want to try this bag, though, is the additional waist strap. Anyone who has used a proper courier bag will be familiar with this. It joins to the shoulder strap (near the base) and also to the bag itself, looping around your middle. The extra strap stops the bag from swinging or even moving when you are on a bike, which makes this bag an ideal option if you’re cycling. It works, too. With it I can zip through traffic without constantly pushing it back behind me like I do with my regular stealth bag
If you are planning on working out of this bag all day, and you really don’t care what you look like, there is an optional chest harness. This hooks on to the ample loops of the Toploader to make a reverse backpack, and making you look like the biggest nerd in the world. Put it this way: When wearing this, a cellphone belt-clip will actually improve things. That said, it’s comfortable, if a little confusing to get into at first. Also, I don’t quite see the point of having a bag on your chest all the time, except perhaps if you are hiking or just trying to repel women.
Would I buy it? Sure. I wouldn’t use it all the time, especially here in Barcelona where such an obvious camera bag is a magnet to thieves, but its small and handy enough to be a very useful bag. This size costs $55, and is the baby of the range. There are two larger models, and the chest strap costs another $10 (plus the cost to your dignity).
Product page [Lowepro]
