My family and I are outgrowing our current living arrangement so we’re finally moving to a new place and I’ll finally have a home studio! While I was gathering all my photo equipment my wife asked, “Why do you have so many of these?” I realized with embarrassment and then pride, like a good photographer, that I was a bag hoarder. I had about a dozen bags that I’ve kept not counting my Lowepro Event S&F system that consists of about a dozen parts that were hiding in it’s own backpack and a ThinkTank “Skin” system that’s about half a dozen components.
My first bag when I got my first DSLR was a Lowepro Stealth Reporter D200Aw. When I started to do weddings I went all out and bought a Lowe pro Computrekker. That held all my equipment. It was humungous. Used that for only a little bit because I found myself needing a carry-on sized bag so I bought a Lowepro Vertex 100AW. The Vertex 100AW was my go to bag for a long time. I started to cover a lot of public events as a photojournalist so it was perfect. From there I went back to weddings and got a Pelican Rolling case. Then I invested in an Lowepro Event S&F system that made it even easier for me to do any kind of event. For comparisons sake I also bought the Think Tank version of the Lowepro event kit. For fun I treated myself to a Photo Sport 200AW. Now that I was enjoying my new 70-200 f/2.8 IS USM I needed a bag for it so in came the ThinkTank Retrospective 10. That’s where I’m at. Oh, if you’re counting I didn’t include light stand bags and other specific use bags.
Through all that there was one bag I always went back to – the Lowepro Stealth Reporter D200AW. It was my first “pro” bag. I used it in the rain thanks to it’s rain cover. I took it to the Philippines twice and it handled well through the flight and the weather. After I got more equipment it became my lighting bag. It carried my pocket wizards, cords, shoes, Gary Fongs, etc. Then as my lighting equipment grew it became the bag I had my backup camera and lenses in. It was the only bag I lent to my photographer friends when they’ve asked me for a bag recommendation. For a while I even used it as a diaper bag! Even at six years of constant use this bag still looks brand new. I’ve become very intimate with it and I wouldn’t change a thing. If anything I wonder if I wouldn’t have had such a long love affair with camera bags if I had gotten the Stealth Reporter D300AW, the D200AW’s bigger brother, which could fit a 70-200. Then again I’m pretty happy with my initial purchase.
