Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best camera/laptop backpack, March 13, 2008
This is a big pack. I wanted something for taking my camera, a few lenses, a laptop and all the chargers and extra cards that I might need on a flight to Europe. I didn't want to have to risk the $7,000 worth of gear I had to the hold and the baggage handlers.
One major design feature is that there are no 'obvious' external pockets. There are actually to zippered slash pockets that I use to stuff power cords, network cables, USB cables, modem cables and all that sort of thing in to. They don't take space from the inside. The main zip opens the back panel rather than the part of the back of the pack, in fact there's nothing anyone can get hold of or get in to when you are wearing the pack. All the zips are good quality and heavy weight. The material which forms the straps continues seamlessly in to the back panels, so they are very strong and there is no stitching to tear. Apparently a common method of stealing tourists gear is to grab their backpack and pull hard, the main zip then opens and you snatch whatever expensive goodies fall out. That won't work with the Crumpler, you may get pulled over but nothing is coming open even if they can find a handhold.
While the pack appears to be soft it actually has a fairly rigid foam lining. This servers the dual purposes of protecting the contents and providing a semi rigid shape. Even when the bag is full of gear and weighs 40lbs it is the same shape as when empty, at least so far as I can tell.
So, opening the pack reveals two parts. One is the laptop insert which is a well made and detachable nylon sleeve. The other is the removable insert for your camera gear. The camera insert has partitions which can be arranged to given open and closed top compartments as well as a small zippered gear bag at the top. Both the small internal bag and the whole insert have zippered mesh covers. The small bag, the whole camera insert and the laptop case can all be separately removed by ripping open some velcro. In practical terms this is very secure, nothing moves when you don't want it to. If you want to leave the cameras and take the laptop just rip out the insert and you can use the rest as a regular pack. If you want to leave the laptop you can remove its case, it looks very complete on its own, closes very securely with a big velcro patch and doesn't leave fasteners flapping around inside or on the sleeve.
I use the small internal bag to secure cleaning gear, spare batteries, memory cards, pens, keys and whatever other small items might be hard to find. I keep a Canon 24-105L lens on one side and a Canon 50 f1.8 and a Metz 54 flash on the other. In the middle I have my Canon EOS40d and a Sigma 80-400 lens. In other pockets I have the various filters, mains and mobile battery chargers, an external hard drive, card reader, radar detector, GPS receiver, VX5R radio, iPod and headphones as well as their various mounting brackets. I also carry a good sized IBM laptop with a 15.4" screen in the laptop sleeve.
All in all that's enough to make it uncomfortable to haul around for long, even on my 6'3" frame. Despite always having it packed solid and taking it on many road and air trips, thousands of miles of driving and tens of thousands in the air, it has never allowed anything inside to be damaged.
If I needed a big laptop/camera bag tomorrow this is what I would buy. I have not seen another brand that is anything like the quality and security of the Crumpler.
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