So I had to actually go to various shops and check out different backpacks and spend quite a lot of time on it. Now, after finding the product that was the closest match to my demands, and using it for a while I decided to write a detailed review of this photo backpack including my own insights and conclusions based on real experience and heavy duty use.

I will start with what were my demands from a photo backpack.

We both – me and my life partner Ira like to hike. We love nature and try to spend as much time as we can outdoors. And obviously I love photography so taking my photo gear with me is never a question. The only question is what gear I am going to take with me and how I will be carrying it. Along these lines my demands from a photo backpack were the following:

1. It has to have enough padded space for all the photo gear I am taking with me outdoors.

2. It has to have an additional compartment for other hiking related gear (clothes, food, etc.).

3. It has to have a good carrying system, to sit comfortably on my back and waist, and wisely distribute the weight across my body.

4. It has to have a tripod holder.

5. It has to have a place for hydration system.

6. It has to have small, and preferably external pockets for all the little things (filters, cleaning cloth etc.).

7. It has to have a rain cover (very important).

Pretty big list huh? I worked hard to find a bag to fulfill all this, and I can’t say that I found a perfect backpack, but I came close.

The biggest problem that I encountered was that most of the professional photo backpacks don’t have enough room for other than photo gear. So I found many great backpacks, with good carrying system, but with no place for other stuff. It still puzzles me – if photographer goes out on a long day of shooting, with tons of gear, doesn’t he need to carry also some personal stuff? I need.

And now to the actual review.

In the two photos below you can see the “Compurover” front and back. It is pretty big backpack, made from top quality materials. It has a comfortable (at least for me) carrying system. During my trip I was walking for about 10 hours (!) a day with it on my back and feeling very comfortable. The waist belt is great – it is wide and well padded, so are shoulder straps. You can also remove the waist belt for drying/cleaning purposes.

Photographs by Greg Brave. Click on the photo to enlarge.

The bottom compartment is for photo gear. It is padded like any other photo bag, and you can also change its configuration to match your photo equipment. It was big enough for me. In this compartment I could carry the following equipment:

Body: Canon 40D

Lenses: Canon 24-70mm f2.8L, Canon 70-200mm f4L, Canon 100mm macro f2.8L, Canon EF-S 10-22mm f3.5-4.6

Flash: Canon 430EX

And there was still room left for one additional small lens such as Canon 28-105 f3.5-4.5

This compartment closes with a zipper and a security lock. When you open it, it slides out in an angle giving you a comfortable access to the equipment. One thing to notice – zipper is somewhat hard to zip/unzip at the corners.

Photographs by Greg Brave. Click on the photo to enlarge.

The tripod holder. When not in use it is folded upward (you can see it on the front view of the backpack above). When needed you unfold it downwards, and put a tripod in it as shown below. Lowepro’s original idea was that you put your tripod under the bungee mesh and use two additional bungee cords (which come with the bag) to secure the tripod at the top and bottom. I found that to be too inconvenient, so what I did was to remove the two bungee cords from top and bottom ( you can’t see them on any of my photos) and only on the top I put a Velcro strap. I put the tripod in the tripod holder without putting it under the bungee mesh, and secure it on the top with a Velcro strap. For me it was enough to securely carry my large tripod.

By the way if you have a small tripod, you can carry it on the side of the backpack putting its legs in the side mesh pocket and securing it with the side strap.

There is also a pretty spacious pocket, which I use to carry my polarizers as you can see on the photo below.

The downside to this tripod holder is that in order to access your photo gear you have to remove the tripod first.

Photographs by Greg Brave. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Additional pockets. “Compurover” has two small zipped pockets on the front, which I use to carry cleaning stuff, micro leatherman, and filters. Pretty convenient. It also has mesh pockets on both sides.

Laptop compartment. The access to the laptop compartment is from the side, so that you won’t have to take out all your gear before getting to the laptop, which is especially convenient when you are passing airport security. But as you probably noticed, in my demands there was no need to carry a laptop. Actually the last thing I want with me on the outdoor hike is an additional 2-3 kilos of dead weight. Do you?

But here is my big breakthrough! I found this compartment to be very useful. Almost indispensable. I use it for my 3 liter hydration system! I put it inside, close the zipper almost all the way up and pull the hose from the top to the shoulder strap.

Photographs by Greg Brave. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Top compartment for other stuff. You can see it on the left photo below. Actually it is pretty spacious. Unfortunately I didn’t show it in this photo. I could put quite a lot of stuff in this compartment such as rain coat, sandwiches, utility knife, and more. As you can see, inside the top compartment there is a zipped pocket and another divider. There is also a memory card holder there. You can see it in more detail in the photo on the right.

Photographs by Greg Brave. Click on the photo to enlarge.

In addition, with the bag comes this small pouch, which I found very convenient to carry spare batteries, cables and stuff.

Photograph by Greg Brave. Click on the photo to enlarge.

The one thing that I didn’t show in the photographs is the rain cover. It has its own pocket at the bottom of the bag.

Additional important little thing is that on the shoulder straps there are two plastic rings (one on each side). If I want to hike with my hands free (for trekking poles for example), but I also want my camera to be ready any minute, I hang it on these two plastic rings instead of hanging it on my neck. And when your camera is as heavy as mine it is very important.

Summary

Conclusion

I am happy with this backpack, and most of the cons are not an issue for me. The only thing for me that is left to see is whether this backpack will hold through the years.

Comments are welcome as always, and if you find this review useful I would also like to hear about it.

Till the next time,

Take care!

Greg.

My friend had a trip to the US, and I used this opportunity to get me this great Canon lens, which I have been dreaming about for quite some time!

As you might have already guessed this is a Canon 70-200 f4 L-series lens. This is the cheapest one from this line of Canon lenses, f4, without image stabilizer. I bought it at B&H for about 630USD and had it shipped to the address my friend was staying at.

The telephoto lens I used before was Canon 75-300 f4-5.6 III USM, given to me as a present. I have enjoyed that lens for about two years, but eventually its lack of sharpness and overall image quality comparing to my other lenses started to bother me a great deal. After doing a little research, I came up with this Canon 70-200 f4 L lens. After reading tons of reviews and watching photos made with this lens I was convinced that it had very good sharpness and image quality, and though I was loosing a 200 to 300 mm range compared to my old lens, I decided to go for it.

There are also much more expensive variations of this lens – f4 with image stabilizer, which goes at B&H at about 1200USD (!!!) and there is also Canon 70-200 f2.8 IS L (1800USD). All these models are far beyond my financial capability, but I have to say that even if I could afford them, I am not sure at all that I would buy them.

This is something that has to be explained.  When you look for a lens, first of all you ask yourself what are you going to shoot with it? In my case it is landscapes, portraits, and studio photography.

• When I shoot landscapes I mostly use a tripod anyway, so I don’t need that additional f-stop for quicker shutter speeds. In addition when shooting landscapes smaller apertures are used anyway.
• When I shoot portraits and studio, I either do it in daylight, which is bright enough for f4, or I use flashes, and their power and position can also be adjusted for working with f4 and smaller apertures.
• The more expensive Canon 70-200 models have also one disadvantage – weight: the f2.8 IS model weights about one 1.5 kilos (!) and the f4 IS model weights 760 gr, while f4 without image stabilizer (the one that I bought) weights 700 gr. The weight is very important when you are hiking with your photo gear, and also when you are holding camera in your hand for a long time.

As you can see currently I have no real need for the more expensive models, but what is important that Canon 70-200 f4 L – is an L-series lens, which means that it has L-series optical components, and the image quality it produces is the same (if not better due to its simpler build) as its more expensive modifications.

You might ask “but who does need those expensive models?”. Well I can think of a few reasons – for example birds photographers really need that lens-speed, or indoor sports photographers – there are many occasions in which they can’t use flashes, but have to shoot quickly moving subjects.

Enough about my choices. What about the lens itself? I will not write a full review here, at least not just yet, but I will share my first impression with you.

I am very happy with it. The build quality is superb, the lens sits good in my hand and the focus ring is very comfortable. The image quality is top-notch. The sharpness is the best I had so far, and the colors are stunning. This lens looks heavier and bulkier than it actually is, and it comes with its own original lens hood. The focusing process is almost silent and pretty quick. One disadvantage of this lens is that its filter size is 67mm and not 77mm like most of the L-series lenses, so I will have to buy an additional polarizing filter for it.

Enough words for this post, here are a couple of photos I made using the Canon 70-200 f4 L lens, and as always comments and critiques are welcome!

Ahula Reserve . Photograph by Greg Brave. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Family Vacation. Photograph by Greg Brave. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Watch Your Step… Photograph by Greg Brave. Click on the photo to enlarge.

Then you find out about the wireless flash triggers and start looking into that. The first wireless trigger you find is the “Pocket Wizard” which is the most popular but costs a fortune, and you say to yourself – “I can’t afford this luxury of wireless triggering my flashes”.

And finally you find this post, where I write about my cheap wireless triggers

I found a cheap solution for wireless triggering my flashes. Same company (Yongnuo) that manufactures the flashes I wrote about, also makes wireless triggers for flash devices. They are cheap and have a 30 meters working range.

You will have to buy one transmitter, which goes on camera, and as many receivers as the number of flash units that you have. For example a bundle of one transmitter and two receivers on Ebay costs about $52.

Their single disadvantage for me was that the receiver has only the regular tripod mount (as you can see in the picture), but I needed it to have the hot shoe mount. In order to solve this problem I bought flash sync hot shoe adapters ($12) for each receiver (see the photo below). However there are similar wireless flash triggers (also Chinese and cheap) that come with hot shoe mount.

I mount the flash on the flash sync hot shoe adapter and connect it to the receiver with PC cord.

Additional advantage of these wireless flash triggers is that they can trigger the flash in two ways:

1. From the transmitter that you put on your camera.
2. From any other flash that fires in their line of sight.

Disadvantages of these wireless flash triggers may be in the build quality. I am working with them only couple of months (and they worked good until now), and I have no idea for how long they will function properly. Compared to pocked wizards their working range is pretty short but personally I never encountered (or could think of) a situation where 30 meters weren’t enough for me.

In conclusion I think that these triggers are perfect for beginners, and who knows, maybe I won’t ever consider upgrading to anything else.

After I wrote several posts about lighting (Light Study I, Light Study II, Patterns and Light Study), I received several responses from my readers saying – “You have up to three flash units in your setup! That is expensive. Not many amateurs who would like to experiment with lighting can afford that.”

Well, this is not exactly true. I agree that Canon flashes are expensive (even second hand), for example I bought my primary Canon 430 EX flash second hand for about 240 USD, and Nikon flashes are in the same price range. There are additional known brands that are a little cheaper but still expensive.

But I found really cheap flashes on e-bay from Chinese company named Yongnuo. Two of them cost me on e-bay only about 95 bucks (for both). Now you have to agree that this is cheap and much more affordable than branded flashes.

Of course there are pros and cons to such a purchase. Let me list here some of them:

Pros:

• Price. Very affordable flash units.

• Flash comes with diffuser dome, built-in bounce card, and wide angle cover (see on the photo below)

• Flash head can be rotated in all the common directions almost the same as Canon/Nikon flashes.

• The output power of the flash can be controlled (but look at the “Cons” section also)

• GN number – 33, which means that this flash is pretty powerful.

Cons:

• Recycling time of 5 seconds. My Canon 430EX recycles at about 2.5 seconds with Ni-Mh batteries.

• No ETTL controls (so that flash power has to be set manually)

• No flash zoom adjustments.

• Power is controlled by turning wheel (see the photo below) and not digitally, so I can’t set, for example, exactly 1/2 power. I can do it only approximately.

• No PC sync connector (but actually my Canon 430EX doesn’t have it either).

• I am also not sure about the build quality. What I mean is that externally this flash looks good, but I don’t know how long it will work. Until now I have been using it for two months and didn’t have any problems.

Looking at the pros and cons, I can say that some of the cons are not that important to me – for example the fact that there is no ETTL controls doesn’t bother me because I always work manually with these flashes. I use them primarily as off camera flashes with remote trigger. If I have to use flash on-camera, I use my Canon 430EX. No flash zoom adjustments are also not that important – if you put your flash behind an umbrella or put a gobo on it – the zoom doesn’t really matter. Even without all this, you can just vary the placement distance of the flash.

I would like to warn you again – I can’t guarantee that the build quality of these flashes is the same as the branded ones. It probably is not. But in my opinion for beginners they can be a perfect start.

In conclusion – if you have the money buy the good and proved branded models, but if your budget is limited like mine and you still want to learn how to work with light, these Yongnuo flashes are good solution for starters.

The white marks that you see near the power wheel are made by me.

In my next post on lighting I will talk about my remote flash triggers. So everyone interested – stay tuned!

If you got interested in these flashes you can visit the e-bay store where I found them. This is not an advertisement, I am not affiliated in any way with that store and don’t receive any benefits if you buy there.

Yongnuo Flashes

I decided to write this review since I have this bag for more than 7 months now and have been using it a lot. Before I bought it, like most of us do, I searched the net for reviews and thought I’ve got it completely figured out. I was sure back then that this bag is exactly what I need. And now, after months of experience with it I would like to share my conclusions and hope they would help some of you to make the right decision.

Buying Kata 3n1 (20) bag my requirements were:

1. I like to hike a lot, mostly one-day hikes, and I always want my camera with me. So I needed my photo bag to sit comfortable on my back.

2. Usually I take three lenses on a hike with me, all of them being Canon lenses: EF-S 10-22, EF24-70 2.8L, and EF70-300 f4-5.6. I needed my backpack to have room for these lenses, their hoods, 40D camera body, two polarizing filters and some additional stuff.

3. All the equipment should be properly stored but easily accessed when I need it.

4. Sometimes I take a tripod with me.

5. I also wanted a very durable bag that would provide a proper protection for everything I put in it since I am not so gentle with my equipment (except lenses of course!!!).

So did Kata 3n1 20 bag do the job?

Let’s go over each requirement and see:

1. This bag has very versatile shoulder straps. You can unclip each strap at its base and clip it to the other side making it possible to carry the backpack in three different positions: the usual backpack position, the sling position, and the x-position.

I tried all of them during my hikes and here are my conclusions:

The usual backpack position is the most comfortable one. I could hike for hours on rough terrain with backpack sitting comfortably on my back. The X-position is not very comfortable. I couldn’t walk long distances using it because x-shaped straps started pressing on my neck and shoulders and I had to pull them to the sides with my hands. Also the sling position, which is very convenient when you want to quickly get your camera, is not very comfortable. I couldn’t hike long distances using this position – the weight on a single shoulder (and neck) was too big. I think that if your gear doesn’t weight as much as mine, then you could use the sling position, but since I had to carry pretty big weight I didn’t find it useful.

2. I have enough room for all the equipment described above and I even have some free space left. So this requirement was fully satisfied.

3. But having this equipment organized conveniently is whole another story. The easiest thing is to get the camera with attached lens out of the side opening (the bag has openings from both sides so you can choose which side you want to use). But when you want to reach other lenses, it is not so easy. You have two options: a. To try and pull the lenses through the side opening and this is pure hell. And b. To take the backpack off your shoulders, put it on the ground (or table, or something), open the central compartment and take out what you need. Even the second option is not as easy as it seems since the central compartment can’t be fully opened – you can see it from the photo:

So when I put a lens in the far end of the bag then it won’t come out as easily as I would like it to. I have to say that the top compartment is very good. I like the way it opens and although it seems pretty small, I manage to put there quite a lot of stuff. I also like the handle on top. Two small side pockets on the outside are good for ipod, filters and cleaning cloths.

4. There is nothing on this bag that allows to attach a tripod, and this is too bad. If it had only a little something that I could use to securely attach a lightweight tripod, I would be a much happier man

5. This bag is very and I mean VERY durable. Its build quality is excellent. Much thought was put in all the weak elements, and in this bag they are very strong. All the gear is perfectly protected inside the bag, and it also has a rain cover. I took it on several hikes during rain and all the equipment stayed dry. I couldn’t say enough good things about the materials and the build of this bag and I am not going easy on it when I use it!

Conclusion

Pros:

• Excellent build quality.
• Comfortable when carrying it as a usual backpack.
• Very convenient side openings.
• Great top compartment.
• Good equipment protection.

Cons:

• The main compartment can’t be fully opened, which makes it difficult to access gear.
• If your equipment is heavy, then you can only use this bag as a backpack and not as sling.
• Impossible to attach tripod.

All that said, I am still using this bag and probably will use it for a while. If you found this review to be helpful, consider supporting my site by buying the Kata 3N1 20 backpack through my affiliate link.

After publishing this article as you can see from the comment below, I was contacted by Doug Feldner, the product manager for the Kata line in the US. He told me something very interesting! There is a tripod holder for the Kata 3n1 series! When I try it I sure will write a few lines about it here.

You can read my review on the tripod holder for the Kata 3n1 series here.