Customer Reviews

MADE Products CA-2001-BLK Seattle Sling Waterproof Bag (Black)

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have been a photographer for over thirty years and I was in the wholesale professional photographic equipment business for about twenty. I now photograph wild birds in some of the harshest environments on earth so when I review an item like this I like to put it through the wringer. And that is just what I did.

First: I like the look and the basic design of the bag. The velcro for the top flap is really heavy duty. It is a good substitute for zippers IF you are using the orange bag inside of the case. The orange protection bag can be pulled out and the insert with the dividers can be reinserted without the water resistant bag. There is space for memory cards and filters just above where the top lid attaches to the case, but no where else. The backpack-type strap is unique and I liked it, although it took some getting used to. The interior space is surprisingly small considering the size of the bag. However, I don't believe that this was designed to be an "all-purpose" camera bag (as are most Tenbas and Lowe Pros). This was made for transporting equipment (photo or otherwise) into really wet environments. So that's what I tested it for.

I used the orange "bag" for all of the water tests. I stuffed the interior dividers with colored paper (I was not up for risking my own photo gear) that turns really dark when exposed to the slightest bit of moisture. Next, I took it outside and took out my garden hose and my trusty eight-way spray nozzle.

I started with the "mist" setting and held the nozzle just two feet from the bag and sprayed all around it for about 20 minutes. If you have ever been close to a great falls you have an idea of what I was testing for. The bag wipes off surprisingly well. The paper was completely dry. Success #1.

Second I used a setting that would simulate a pretty good rain storm. Since I have been caught in these many times with my own camera bag in the past (including in the rain forest of Peru and a down-pour in a South Florida that I thought would never end) I felt that one hour was just about the right amount of time. I noticed some water inside of the case itself but not inside of the orange bag. It was still dry inside. Success #2.

Now, I wouldn't have subjected the bag to this last test if it were not for the photo on the tag that showed the bag being submerged in water. I wanted to see how well the Camera Armor bag protected gear from an accidental fall into water. This has happened to me several times in my life and I have ended up damaging a Hassleblad, two Leicas and ruining a favorite view camera lens. Time for a dip in the pool!

I stood near the edge of the four foot deep part of a community swimming pool and imagined that I had a brand new Canon 50D (yet to be released at this time) and about $5000 in lenses in the bag. I "lost" my balance, fell into the water and immediately raised the bag out of the pool as quickly as I would have if it had been for real. Wow! No paper inside of the bag was even a little bit wet. However, if I had memory cards in the space that I think they were meant to be they would have been subjected to a drowning unless they were in their own little plastic cases. Success #3!

I took out the colored paper and stuck white paper inside it now. I took it to a dry field and almost covered it with dirt and sand. Again, the interior of the bag had dirt in it, but not the protective orange bag. Success #4. I was tired and gave up in any further torture.

This is a GREAT bag for what it is designed for and worth the cost. But I have to be honest and say that this model should not be considered a "Pro" bag. There just isn't enough room for even enough gear for a day trip. Also, it is hard to get in and out of when using the orange bag. Where I think that this bag fits in is as a way for adventurists to carry a modest amount of sensitive gear and protect it from getting wet or dirty. I could put a digital SLR with a zoom attached, a flash, a GPS and radio or two. Until it is available in a larger model I would suggest the pro gets an external cover for his/her existing case. If you think that you and your bag might get submerged carry your equipment in a Pelican case.

I give the Camera Armor 5 stars for water resistance and 3 for being a well thought-out camera bag, so 4 stars in all.

Pelican 1450 Case w/Foam (Black)

Pelican 1620 Watertight Hard Case with Dividers & Wheels - Black

Length:: 4:17 Mins

If you are carrying expensive camera equipment in unfriendly environments, this is the bag for you. For the 95% of us who don't, it's overkill and not very spacious.

This bag offers comprehensive protection for your gear. Starting from the inside...

The innermost piece is a removable box composed of soft felt padding. The box contains four dividers that are held in place by velcro. You can move the dividers around to fit your gear. Most camera bags have this feature.

Next is a heavily plasticized bag that closes with a folding flap. This bit seems very waterproof. You can remove this if you like. It secures to the outer part of the bag with three webbing/buckle bits.

Finally, the outer bag. It is padded. It secures with velcro. Lots of velcro. Noisy velcro. No webbing/buckles are used to secure the lid.

The outer bag has a large flap to hold a tripod. It secures with two webbing/buckle bits. There is room for a fairly large tripod here.

The bag has a clever system for slinging onto your shoulder. It features a large padded strap that goes across your chest, and a small strap. It took me a while to figure it out. I like to put it on like this:
1. Unfasten the small strap.
2. Sling the large strap across my chest.
3. Fasten the small strap.

There is a maneuver that should be used to access your gear. While you are hiking through the woods, the bag is on your back, like a mountaineering pack, in a vertical configuration. You can
1. Unfasten the small strap.
2. Loosen (lengthen) the large strap. Do it now, while the buckle is easy to reach.
3. Slide the bag around to your stomach. It is now in a horizontal position, and you can look down on the opening flap of the bag.

At this point, both your hands are free to open the bag. This involves

1. Open the velcro flap. This is loud, so forget about sneaking up on wildlife here. Conveniently, the flap opens away from your body, revealing a large opening that faces straight up. Your gear won't fall out.

2. Unfasten the three webbing/buckle bits that secure the waterproof bag.

3. Unroll the waterproof bag. You are now looking straight down at your gear, nestled in the padded dividers of the bag.

The above maneuver can be safely done while standing knee deep in a sea of mud. You don't remove the bag from your torso.

Everything I see on this bag seems to be well thought out, well built, very nice! There is an outside panel that rests on your back when you are carrying the bag. This panel has padding and ventilation like a soft mountaineering pack. There are several loops of webbing on the outside of the bag for lashing on gear. All of the webbing/buckle bits are large and strong.

The only reservation I have regarding this product is that the user should determine that he really needs this level of protection. It is obvious to me that the bag offers superb protection against shock and penetration, dust and dirt. I believe that the bag offers superb protection against water and mud, although I have not tested this! However, this bag is somewhat large and heavy. In fact, I would estimate that the outside of the bag occupies somewhere between two and three times as much volume as the amount of gear that can be stowed inside. Finally, there are no outside pockets to this bag that would allow rapid access to small items.

All of the disadvantages listed in the previous paragraph are a direct result of the high level of protection that this bag offers. These are not design flaws, these are what you get. If you need a lot of protection, this bag rocks.

I've never met a professional or hobbyist photographer who didn't have a collection of camera bags and was always on the hunt for the "perfect" bag. Well, the perfect bag doesn't exist, that's for sure. But many bags fit some needs perfectly - and the Seattle Sling Waterproof Bag falls squarely in this category.

If you've ever tramped around in the hinterlands of Washington, Oregon or California, you'll instantly understand the beauty of this bag. Same is true if you're on the other side of the continent in the mountains of New Hampshire. In fact, any place where you and nature's elements - sand, water, rocks, dirt - come together, the Seattle Sling will be a very welcome companion.

The manufacturer, Made Products, earned its reputation with Camera Armor, an encompassing silcone cover for many professional and prosumer DSLRs, like the Nikon D80.

The first thing you'll notice about the Seattle Sling are the orange tabs that come out from under the top into snap clips. When you open the bag, you'll see that the orange tabs are just the hint of a sealed seam sturdy Velcro-sealed vinyl-like pouch that completely surrounds the padded compartment that holds your camera, lenses and accessories. This bag closes with a roll-over and fold-over cover to form a very water-resistant, if not truly waterproof, barrier. The top of the case then folds over the waterproof bag and seals with enough Velcro to carpet a small room. It is very secure. I'm not about to load it with my cameras and drop them into nearby Lake Michigan to test it out. But it sure looks like it would protect my gear for at least long enough for me to retrieve it . . . if I can.

In an area with sudden rainstorms like the Northwest, the Seattle Sling is a welcome addition. The outdoor photographer anywhere will appreciate this bag in snow, early morning dew, nearby surf and sand. It's really a terriffic idea.

The storage compartment will comfortably hold a DSLR with a long zoom, an additional lens or two and an external flash unit. A smallish side pouch with web pockets can hold filters, extra batteries, flash cards, a manual (!). remote release, but not too much more.

There are four loops on the outside of the case that might be used to hold longish objects, like perhaps a QuikPod DSLR Handheld Convertible Tripod.

The front side has a flap and buckle arrangement which will securely hold a fairly hefty tripod.

The outer bag is made of some kind of man made material with padding between the layers.

Every aspect of the bag exhibits very good design and excellent manufacturing processes. It really a nice piece of design and very well made.

It has an over-the-shoulder carrying strap. Hand Made Products' attention to detail is evident in the small security strap that wraps under your arm to secure the main strap and keep shifting to a minimum. If you've even been trying to get down a steep slope and had a bag shift on your shoulder, you'll know how much a security strap like this is great to have. Its inclusion also demonstrates Hand Made's design prowess and attention to detail.

Overall, I think it is more comfortable than a backpack.

With a full kit of camera, accessories and tripod, the bag is suprisingly well balanced slung across the back. There is additional padding to ease the pressure on your back.

Is this bag perfect? No. There is, alas, no such thing as a perfect bag.

But the Seattle Sling has fewer drawbacks than many other camera bags.

The biggest problem lies in its biggest strength: the waterproof envelope. Unfolding it is a kind of slow process, not burdensomely slow, but slow enough to make rapid changing of lenses impossible. Thus, this is not the bag to use when you're shooting sports or any other event where you want to be able to change lenses in a flash.

The Seattle Sling is somewhat on the small side and not suited for those who feel the need to carry a half-dozen or more lenses, multiple external flashes and the like. But the Seattle Sling is not designed for those people - it is designed for people going into places where there may be water, sand, dust, mud and all those other things dangerous to cameras.

It will carry what you need for a trek in the woods, a photo walk down the shore, a day of shooting flowers without breaking your back in a very secure weather and environment proof bag.

All in all, the Seattle Sling is a very well designed bag for its purpose and I suspect many photographers will immediately see its place in their kit.

Jerry

95% of photographers wouldn't need this bag. Unless you plan to carry your gear under Niagara falls or deep inside the Amazon rain forest, this bag is useless to you.
I have never seen camera bag built this tough. No chance for any water to get in, or out for that matter thanks to a thick red plastic liner. It also weight a ton with limited carrying space. The strap is also strange and it is hard to wear it on your shoulder. You can remove the liner and use it as a regular bag, but what's the point? There are other better bag out there for everyday's use.
So, this is really for special applications.

I eagerly awaited trying out this bag, not because of any reason other than as a photographer of sorts I'm always finding myself wanting "just one more thing." My current bag is the Lowepro Slingshot 200, which I like quite a bit aside from the strain it puts on my right shoulder after a while.

I own several lenses alongside my current camera body, a Canon EOS 5D. At first glance, the Seattle Sling is very chunky. It's a rectangular mammoth, looking quite a bit larger than the Lowepro...


I figured because of this that there would be quite a bit of room inside the case, but I was disappointed to see there's much, much less room than the Slingshot...

The design is interesting, as inside the case there's a "waterproof" bag and the slots for your equipment inside the bag. Think Ziploc with magnets at the top instead of a "real" seal. This is bizarre, as the magnets, while convenient, don't properly seal the bag, so I really don't think your camera would survive a drop in the water. In the case of extreme rain, the camera would probably be fine, but I'd argue that the Lowepro is even better in this respect since it has a waterproof cover that comes out and covers the entire OUTER case, i.e. no water gets in. With the Slingshot, water can get in the outer part but technically gets stopped when it reaches the inner magnetically sealed bag where your equipment is stored.

There's technically room for 4 lenses and one camera body with a lens attached, but in reality there's not much chance of this happening unless you have a relatively small SLR and small lenses along with it. My 5D with the 24-105 Canon lens stick up considerably with the lens face down in the bag, leaving the body of the camera quite exposed at the top to being bashed around, certainly more than the Lowepro.

Another problem with this bag is there's only a little place to put accessories, and, ironically, this part is definitely NOT water protected. I noticed some rain had got in while out this past week, and my filter covers were a little moist. The sides of this accessory holder are protected by a MESH cover, with holes in it! HOLES? Holes + rain = BAD! This little holder seems more of an afterthought than anything else...

Overall, I'm disappointed with the case. I think the build quality is quite nice, but it really is a chunky case. As soon as you put the case on your shoulder you're well aware you've got a material brick on your back. It's not at all subtle, and it's nowhere near as easy to get your equipment out as the manufacturer would have you believe. It feels like digging in a bag. Couple that with not being able to hold very much, and you have to wonder why.

So while not an awful bag by any means, you're much better off with the Lowepro. It has more compartments and space, isn't quite as chunky-monkey in its appearance, and is considerably less expensive.

**EDIT**

I forgot to mention, this bag has the most obnoxious velcro cover EVER that you have to pull apart to get into the case. If you're in the forest and need to switch lenses to get a picture of that deer 200 feet away, forget it! You try and open the bag and you'll scare the entire forest away. And the forest next to that forest.

I have to concur with most reviewers who rate this bag a 3. When I first took it out of the box, I thought about the limited amount of equipment I could fit into it. Putting my Canon 30D and 70-200mm lens in this bag would pretty much leave room for little else. And for some odd reason there's no outside pocket space that is pretty standard on bags like these. It does however come with tripod holders which is a plus, but strapping on the bag with the tripod didn't seem that comfortable to me. Plus, the velcro used to open and close the bag is not appealing to me. Too noisy and a little awkward.

So definitely this bag is not useful for say professional wedding and event photographers like myself. But it may appeal to nature photographers who shoot in challenging weather conditions where camera gear protection is needed. It's solidly built with lots of padding.

But my professional advice for anyone ordering this bag from Amazon is to keep the receipt because it might not fit your needs. For a similar price, I have seen better bags, even though this one does provide insular protection that is not a standard with most camera bags on the market.

This bag from Made Products is like the SUV of camera bags. When it first arrived in the mail, I almost couldn't believe it was a camera bag at all. It looked more like a huge lunchbox you might have if you planned on picnicking on top of a mountain. The size of it made sense only when I took it on the road.

My old bags had a nasty habit of swinging along with my momentum when I put the strap on my shoulder but not this bag. The strap is from 3" to 4" wide and is very padded so when you put it on you won't feel like it's going to saw off your shoulder.

It also features another strap located on the lower right corner of the bag that acts as a stabilizer keeping it nice and motionless. It actually looks a lot like a vehicular seatbelt in the way that it's designed.

There are no pockets on the outside but it's not an issue since the inside of the bag has plenty of room for your camera and its accessories. I'm talking about a 10" deep, 13 1/2" long space with a padded divider for all your lenses, film, filters, etc. The divider itself has been placed inside a bright red bag used to keep your equipment safe from dirt, dust, sand, and water and it has instructions printed on the outside for your convenience.

The entire camera bag is really like two bags in one with padding provided from the outer bag and small particulate protection provided from the inner bag.

The coolest part I found was that when you need to get your camera out of the bag, you don't even have to take it off. If you unhook the stabilizing strap I mention earlier, the bag can then be swung around in front of you securely (meaning you won't have to worry about it swinging back around at all) and opened up pretty easily. It's like it turns you into one of those vendors at sports games selling beer and hotdogs from a tray in front of their chests. With this function, the camera bag's bulk makes perfect sense. It seems to me like Made Products thought of almost everything when they designed this bag.

For everything that I like about it, I have two small beefs with this camera bag. While the design is good, the color of the inner bag should have been changed to match the rest of the bag. This is a super red color that almost hurts the eyes. The other beef I had deals with some straps on the outside of the bag. They are supposed to be used to carry a tripod for your camera but when I strapped mine in, the bag kept slipping backwards. I would recommend using this feature if you have a lightweight or smaller tripod.

Overall though I think this camera bag is well worth the price.

Since there are a lot of detailed descriptions of this bag and its positive and negative attributes let me just add some info that I did not see here yet.

I took this on a Southwest Airlines flight this past weekend. The bag would not fit under the aisle seat without more pushing than I would be comfortable with considering I had my SLR in it. It would fit under the middle seat and was ok under the window seat. It is large enough to count as your "bag" with the way that the airlines are cracking down on what you carry on. The fact that it is very well padded makes it a little less stressful to put it in the overhead bin, but be sure someone does not come along and shove a hard suitcase against it.

It is nice in that it does not scream "I am carrying lots of expensive camera equipment" But it does not have 2 rubber "camera armor" badges on it. This is something my Canon camera backpack also has plastered on the back. I wish that companies would not put these logos on the outside, since I really don't want to indicate what I have in my bag.

It was not a problem putting it through the scanner, although the TSA did look at the little magnetic clasp once it went through the x-ray machine one of the four times I went through security. And they did not want me showing them how to open it so I had to talk them through.

It's a bit hard to carry with a purse because if you are female and more than a little endowed the smaller strap part of the backpack ends up acting a little like an unintended underwire bra.

The waterproof case is removable. In fact I took it out when I went down to the beach to shoot and put it inside another case.

Also when I got home I tested it by putting a towel in it, putting it in the shower for 2 minutes and then taking it out. The towel was perfectly dry. So I would feel confident this would protect my camera in really wet weather.

PROS:
Will keep your stuff dry! The interior red-orange bag is a "dry bag", similar to other "dry bag" products used by kayakers, rafters, etc. It's heavy-duty rubber bag that secures by a magnetic strip, then rolling it multiple times and securing. This is proven technology for keeping stuff dry - at least from rainstorms and quick drop-and-retrieve from the water. Water could seep in if immersed for any length of time, however.

Will keep your stuff in one piece. The interior of the "dry bag" is a fabric covered foam box, with adjustable dividers. This box and the dividers are very dense foam. The exterior of the bag contains yet another layer of padding on all sides.

Very wearable. You wear this bag on your back, like a backpack, but the strap crosses over your chest, with an additional strap coming up the other side. This design feels more secure than a standard backpack, and also leaves your shoulders freer for paddling, climbing, etc. The main strap is very well padded, and both straps are quite adjustable. I'm only 5'2", and it adjusted down to my size just fine.

Appears quite durable. The outer fabrics are a very high denier fabric (like on some so-called "bulletproof" soft luggage) and a rubberized fabric. They seems like they'll hold up very well. The straps and buckles are high quality. The stitching is tight and secure.

CONS:
It is bulky compared to the capacity. Exterior is approx 15x9x9, interior is approx 11x8x6. Especially for a small person, the overall size is a little overwhelming.

No quick access to gear. The bag is ingeniously designed to transition from your back to your front, for access to your gear without removing from your back. However, undoing the buckles and unrolling the dry bag takes some time. You will miss shots.

No alternate carrying method. The straps are very well designed for backpack style wearing, but it would be nice to have an additional handle for casual carrying as well.