The Crumpler Sinking Barge Backpack for the Traveling Photographer
Crumpler seems to aim for bags that are sturdy, aesthetically pleasing and simple in design. The Sinking Barge — a new laptop camera backpack from Crumpler — comes up with a good take on how to efficiently carry your DSLR camera and laptop so as not to upset your back, but also make these items more accessible.
The Sinking Barge backpack fits two lenses, a camera body, a laptop and other assorted items. The design is slick, allowing for separate zippers to separate compartments: one laptop compartment and one camera compartment. There are no easy side pockets for carrying water bottles or anything, but there is an additional front pocket for very thin and bendy items. The pouches are nicely padded and it looks like it would take a lot to break the items in the bag. Overall the bag feels super sturdy and capable of taking a lot of abuse from the outside world. It’s also water resistant and handled the small amount of rain we encountered very well.
Like all Crumpler bags, the design is very chic. They use bright colors instead of the usual drab black (although they have them in black as well), which also makes it look less like a camera bag, an advantage when traveling. The description of “sinking” is very aptly attached to the bag because of the way all the weight sinks to the bottom. Luckily, there is a waist strap and a chest strap, so the bag distributes the weight evenly across your body. It works much better than a shoulder-strap bag for carrying these items, but it’s not a huge, multipurpose professional bag capable of carrying tripods and everything, more a “prosumer” photographer’s bag, somebody serious about photography, but without 10-dozen accessories.
It’s meant for compact DSLRs. We use a standard Nikon D90 and we found that it worked great for just carrying the camera body and accompanying lens. Our laptop is rather small, so it did not take much room and the laptop pouch could have easily taken a much larger laptop — they advertise most laptops up to 15” can fit. However, overall the items fit very snugly in the bag, making it difficult to grab-and-go with the camera, though in that manner also providing protection and efficiently using the space.
The bag is a mix. It feels like overkill for just for carrying a few basic items, but too many more items and it’s hard to use it very efficiently. It was a vast improvement over shoulder-strap bags for enabling its carrier’s mobility and we found ourselves hiking with our camera equipment to take some lovely outdoor shots. Overall, it’s a good bag for hikers and travelers, or anybody who wants to take a load off their back.
Available for $150.50 on the Crumpler site. They also have a Deluxe version for $230 and all these items are also sold on Amazon.
I do like the older backpacks better, like Crumpler Kawachi (spell check needed) Outpost. But of course this is still a Crumpler
— Rick · Feb 22, 11:05 AM · #