Crumpler THE SINKING BARGE Laptop Camera Backpack (Dark Brown/Oatmeal/Orange)

by Crumpler

Product Details

• Item Weight: 4 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 5 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000W8U42O
• Item model number: SI-02A
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 15, 2007

Product Description

The Crumpler Sinking Barge Backpack (Dark Brown with Oatmeal and Light Orange Accents) is a 1000-denier, water-resistant nylon bag made to carry a 15" laptop and accessories, as well as your compact photo and/or video equipment and accessories. It has a forward opening main compartment with fully padded laptop sleeve and document sleeve plus forward opening access to a padded camera compartment with 2 configurable dividers and security-mesh top. The backpack has D-rings accessory loops & retro reflective strips on the harness straps plus a spine slot back pad and removable waist strap and removable chest strap.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not good to travel with or for day use, January 13, 2009

By 

Roshan Vyas "Impulse Buyer Extraordinaire" - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this bag since I was traveling with a camera and laptop for a few months and wanted a non-dork looking bag. The bag looks good, but I found it lacking in everything else.

Here's the gear I was looking to carry:
-Apple MacBook Pro 15"
-Nikon D40
-Nikkor 18-55mm
-Nikkor 55-200mm

There are 3 zippered compartments: Let's say the one closest to your back when you're wearing it is Main, the middle one that holds your camera gear is the Middle, and farthest pocket is Mini.

The Main compartment has an area for your laptop and an area for some magazines/docs, both covered by a velcro flap. The rest of the room can be used for random crap, but the more you put in, the harder it is to open the velcro flap to get your laptop out.

The Middle compartment has a removable bucket to hold your camera gear. It also has a couple of netted pockets for random cables and cards. All of my gear fit in this area, but when the camera is in there...

The Mini pocket becomes completely stretched and unusable. You can't even put a pen in there. Anything stiff in there would bend as it's being pushed out by the Middle pocket.

All of the outside zippers are thick and feel secure, and are have fabric folded over them so they're hidden. This is great in crowds: I was traveling around crowded parts of Asia and never felt afraid that I wouldn't feel someone unzipping one of the pockets to steal something. But it sucks for daily use. There is just no way to open the bag fast, you have to take it off and fiddle with the zippers. I know it's a tradeoff, but make sure you understand that tradeoff before getting it.

For daily use with a laptop and no camera, the bag never felt bulky, but it did feel like overkill. For daily use with a camera and no laptop, it felt too big to be carrying around for a day trip.

The only times I liked using the bag were when I was packing to get on planes since it held all of my electronics. But once I landed, I had little use for the bag.

One last annoying thing to keep in mind if you're traveling a lot: There's no convenient place to hold travel docs and a cellphone that you need to access frequently, say at the airport and through security. It would have been nice to have an extra zippered pocket on the side to easily slide things into.

I ended up selling the bag after a few months. Let me know if you'd like to write anything else about the bag in the comments.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for weight of new d300 and 3 large lenses, April 29, 2009

By 

jessica bermudez (KEW GARDENS, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crumpler THE SINKING BARGE Laptop Camera Backpack (Dark Brown/Oatmeal/Orange) (Electronics)

I recently purchased this as a gift with the D300 and battery grip. Carrying all that camera weight was always an issue for taking out the camera for long trips. We tried it out at the Botanical Gardens and I ended up carrying it. It had the D300 with battery grip, 1 medium lens, 2 large lenses and the SB800. WOW what a relief on my shoulders! I used to carry the Tamarac Velocity 9 and I would always cramp up! This was a relief! After four hours of carry time....no pain at all. It's also easy to manage, its a good bag...also has plenty of pouches to store lens filters, card readers, cards, and cords.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Bag - Tight on Space, January 18, 2009

By 

John P. Maher (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This is my second Crumpler bag and the quality is everything I expected. My only complaint is the space. From reading other reviews, I thought I would have enough room in this bag for my Canon 40D w/24-105 mounted plus another lens and flash. It barely fits. Don't expect to get anything more into the photo compartment.