Battleangel | Personal

I got rid of my Fastpack 250 in favour of the Flipside 400 AW. Camera bags sure are a real nuisance. There is no such thing as the perfect bag, and most have serious caveats.

The Fastpack for instance has a brilliant fast access system that I will miss, but hangs on your back like a sack of potatoes and doesn’t swallow much equipment at all. The perfect application for such a bag would be if you had an 18-200 "super zoom" or whatever that you never changed AND you wanted to carry a laptop. But carrying a few extra lenses makes the bag uncomfortable, especially since it lacks a chest strap.

The Flipside on the other hand employs a semi-fast access, better ergonomics, a chest strap (flimsy but still) and far more camera specific storage. Even so, my first impression of the bag was how small it was. Disappointingly small. And that like many Lowepro bags it hangs way too high on the back. Even with adjustments, getting the waist belt to actually rest on your hips seems like mission impossible. Still, it’s pretty good and in many ways a big step up from the Fastpack. Having said that, I still can’t fit all of my equipment, nor do I even know if it would be a good idea. The important thing is that I can fit a gripped 40D with the Sigma 150-500mm mounted (hood reversed). The 17-50mm, 70-200mm L and 100mm macro will fit as well, but after that I have no place to store either the standard flash or the macro flash. So I’m still going to have to prioritize. It’ll probably be better for my back as well.

What about a bigger bag? Well, price is an issue of course. Perhaps I could find something good second hand, like the Nature Trekker II, a bag like that isn’t much bigger on the inside. I might still have to resort to sliplock Street and Field lens cases. The difference being that a Nature Trekker is more comfortable to wear and will suck up that extra weight better. It should be noted though that a backpack like that is about 2.9 kg EMPTY. The Flipside 400 and Fastpack 250 are both only about 1.6 kg empty. By comparison, a 75 litre hiking backpack like the Haglöfs OXO 750 weighs in at 3 kg empty. The extra 1300 grams difference between the Nature Trekker and Flipside happens to be the exact weight of the Canon 70-200L. So it’s not exactly trivial.

The tripod holder on the Flipside was adequate for a monopod but not much else. Perhaps I could fit the 055XPROB if I removed the head and put it inside the bag (if I had the room) but realistically this is probably a no-go. Besides, I do have a bag for the tripod that I can hang across my body on the chest for short trips. For longer trips I wouldn’t want to carry such a heavy piece no matter how well it was strapped in.

As for the rather unique opening of the Flipside it’s an added bonus. I haven’t quite gotten the hang of it yet but it will probably save you a few seconds compared to taking the entire bag off. But when you have the bag completely filled to the brim, flipping the bag over feels completely insecure. I don’t think the waist belt will break easily but I’d probably place a knee under the bag for support.

Despite some gripes I’m reasonably pleased with the Flipside 400 AW. For all my nagging it could be the "perfect" camera bag.