Names - AND Pack Drill...

I often see people kitting themselves up at our bag section for ambitious expeditions - the sort of thing that starts out in a shopping centre travel bureau and ends up in a Medi-vac stretcher. Leaving aside those people who have chosen to fall off mountains or get shot, we are left with the ones who have decided to take the trip of a lifetime with a lifetime's worth of heavy photo equipment and will return to a lifetime of chiropractor's visits...

Doesn't need to be that way. Gavin - our Olympus micro 4/3 expert here at the shop - travels with an Olympus micro 4/3 camera and several lenses, but he does not take along the entire optical output, nor does he spend shooting time swapping lenses. He has a sensible mix that really amounts to 2 or 3 lenses as well as the body and some spare memory and electricity. His travel results are superb.

If you'd like to emulate this, talk to gavin here and look at the Olympus E-P3 cameras tat are on special. Then go down to the back of he shop and look at the Lowepro backpacks - specifically the sport ones. Never mind that you are not going to be doing sport - the name is attached only as a sales catch - the bags are perfect for travel/

I've showcased the Flipside Sport 10L AW today. It is a two-strapper with the entry flap against the body. No-one gets to open the bag while you wear it. You can still risk your passport and money on an outside flap if you want to.

There is a closed flap on the left side that would encase a small travel tripod - like the Three Legged Thing ones or the beautiful small Cullmann nano tripods and it would not let the legs of the tripod open and flap as you move through the jungle or city.

The entire inside is a tray - you can pick it out upon release of a velcro panel - and when you do it has a double cinch flap that makes a waterproof parcel of it. Very neat idea.

The most wonderful part of it is the overall weight of the pack - 900 grammes. This is lighter than the laptop that is typing these words.

Not as well the adjustable breast strap. Not just breadth but height as well - it can be positions so as to allow you to breathe easily while wearing it. This is absolutely as important as the padding of the shoulder straps and the shape of the lumbar pad. You can deal with a great deal of weight as long as your diaphragm can move. As someone who marched and fought all day in a full British Trotter pack I can attest to this - we ended up padding the bottom edge of the Trotter with our fatigue jackets to ease the pain as it cut into us. Pity Lowepro did not make military gear in 1815.