As you may know I've been to KLPF!! How can a person who likes photography so much not buy anything for there?! Well, as for me, I've bought my 1st real photography purpose bag! It is a Lowepro Inverse 200 AW. And I'd like to share how good it is and why I bought it! Oh besides, I've bought a Lenspen too!
Before that, I'd like to take this opportunity to explain why I did not update my blog as often as it used to be. But first, a million apology to those, if any (optimistically), who are keen on my updates. I've been shooting sunflowers lately. Yeap, finally something to shoot at! Since I considered it as some sort of project for myself, hence I shoot RAW. For those who are not familiar with it, I also dunno how to tell you, cuz i don't know what RAW stands for, but its good cuz you could adjust the exposures n WB later on. But the drawback was you have got to process each and every picture you took. Well that would explaint why I did not update for so long already. But I'll try my best to!
So, here's the bag!
The front of the bag. Oh, in case you didn't know, it is a waist bag instead of a conventional design of back pack. As you can see here, like every other Lowepro bags, you can find the rubber Lowepro badge in front. I was surprised that Lowepro made the effort to coloured the wording in Gray instead of white which its original logo was. I guess the reason behind this was to endure some stain at a certain level. Great job on small details.
A tag describing its model. If you don't like it, i guess you could easily cut it. Otherwise, its best to leave it alone.
The left side view of the bag. Note the strap, it's one of the reason why I had chosen this rather than other brand's offering. So, what's the wonder of this strap? For those who uses a waistbag or belt pack, or waist pouch, or whatever you call it, when it became heavy, the weight would tend to tilt the bag towards bottom as a result of lack of support. With this strap, this problem was cleverly overcomed. Its a perfect fit! Tighten it, and it would tilt down!
The right side of the bag. Note the larger pocket, reason for it being larger than the one on the left side is, it's for you to place your water bottle. Yeah, Lowepro read my mind!! At last, a special, easily accessible compartment for water bottle. Quenching your thirst after a hot day photo outing!
The back side of the bag, I found it very well padded not only to protect your costly equipment but also for your comfort. Compared to other brands, this was a better option. But I'm a little concern of the pad's durability even thought such a bag comes with a limited life time warranty.
Lowepro even went further to offer a second choice of carrying the bag. Instead of being a waistbag, it can be a sling bag too! So the call in yours as the strap comes as standard!
In the front of the bag, you can find two pockets, one with zip and another does not. It was sufficient enough to place your manuals etc, while the non-zip pocket was larger, but I did not have much confident in unzipped pockets! be safe than sorry!
This is the cool part! At the bottom of the bag, you could find two strap. Its for your tripod!! I personally suggest tripods no longer than 30cm would be just fine. Longer than that could destroy the aesthetics of the bag!
This is the inside of the bag! Well padded! Ample space for mid-size DSLR with standard zoom lens, and there is enough space for a flash gun and an additional telephoto lens! Small you may think, but don't forget, I still have a back for a backpack! For frequent used gears, I could put in this bag, while others, can be in my backpack! I believe in this setting, I could bring more gears! Oh, one more thing, the separators are fully customizable. Lowepro calls it Slip-Lock.
Even the inner side of the cover was made used of media storage. The pockets are made of Tricot fabric, no worries of scratches done to your equipments!
For those who didn't know, you should look for this red seal to make sure this is a genuine Lowepro bag. Otherwise, check its importer, its Technical Photo System in Jalan Segambut.
Now, most of the photography specific bags features an all weather cover, ie, water-proof cover. Please don't take it wrong, its not water-proof to the extend that you could dive with it. So I decide to do a little test on how water-proof it is!
First, this bag was, claimed by Lowepro, made with water-resistant fabric. How water resistant? I've drop some droplets on the surface of the bag without rain cover.
Look!! It's not soaking in!! This shown that the fabric was, at least, water repellent! It does not soak into the fabric. But I could not tell how long it could hold. Nevertheless, a light shake would easily shake off the droplets. By the way, the zip was cleverly hidden under the fabric, saving you sometime to deploy the rain cover.
This is how it looks like when the rain cover was deployed. It is actually built-in to the bag. Remember the all-weather tag picture above? It was a pocket for this cover actually. Now, how does it perform?
Not surprisingly, the water was not soaked in. Yet I'm not sure how long it could hold, but I'm confident that it could hold up to a reasonable time!
Now, how much did i paid for this? It may sound expensive for lay person, but for us, photography hobbyist, its definitely a good price. I bought it from Keat Camera Service booth for RM350. But I'm so surprised what this bag is capable of. Especially its design, of which not every bag designer could have ever thought of. I believe this is not a design simply came out from the design room, but from real outdoor experience! By the way, the boss of the shop was really friendly! very very recommended!
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