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For the Journey - Packing the gear - part 2 of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

by Mike McNamee Published 01/10/2014

A wedding pack of tele zoom, standard zoom, wide angle zoom a spare body and a couple of flashguns missing. Easily fits within the Manfrotto Pro 30 although the hoods of the f2.8 optics are a little too wide.

For the wedding shoot we have packed two camera bodies, two flashguns and the 'standard' three lenses, as well as a laptop (the bag is designed for a 13" Macbook). For the landscape shoot we have lost the laptop, dropped the 70-200 and flashes but added a tripod.

The wedding kit weighs in at 11.7kg including the bag; the landscape a little lighter at 9.1kg. These are not trivial weights especially for longer walks; an expedition pack for, say, Duke of Edinburgh Bronze is recommended to be no more than 1/3 body weight or 15kg. Although these are young people, most of them are bigger than your editor! Interestingly the DoE also set a recommended 'height gained' limit of 500m per day - an interesting statistic alongside the 1,400ft climb your editor did up Side Pike recently packing a fulsome kit!

In Use

The Manfrotto was used away from base at Paul Gallagher's when we tested the Samyang T-S lens. Hardly strenuous, but it is surprising how simply moving out of the office and onto grass affects the way you handle a bag. The bag stayed upright and stable on the flat grass, thanks to the stiffness of the base and sides. This made top access to the camera and body combination very quick and easy. Opening the back flap fully would be OK on flat ground but could run the risk of toppling the contents out on a slope and so the bag needs to be rolled onto its back. This carries the issue of putting the shoulder straps onto the ground and thus becoming soiled, before transferring that same soiling onto your clothes! This is a major plus feature of the f-stop range discussed later in this review.

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