The Best Bags and Backpacks for Travel Photography

My favorite bags and backpacks for travel photography. 

- Joe Farace

Camera bags are as much luggage as they are photographic gear and when traveling I prefer to travel as light as possible. That’s one of the reasons that I like Think Tank Photo’s Speed Freak V2.0 for urban travel. It works just as well for my APS-C-sized SLRs as my mirrorless cameras. MindShift Gear (see column) was founded by the creators of Think Tank Photo.

“What do you get a photographer that has everything? A bag to put it in.”—Old joke

WHEN A PHOTOGRAPHER LEAVES the studio to go on location, they need to start packing. It doesn’t matter whether you’re slinging gear into a Range Rover or a baggage handler is stuffing it inside an Airbus, you need tough, dependable bags and cases that are up to the job. How do you pick the bags and cases that hold your equipment? Like green bags? Prefer anonymous bags? Want a hard case? What about wheels? The answer to these questions and more are found in this month’s installment of “One Case to Schlep.”

To paraphrase Shakespeare, “there are more camera bags in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” To find products for Geared Up, I attend trade shows and solicit suggestions from readers and colleagues. That’s why the following are not just my favorites but include those from other Shutterbug writers and staff.

TRAVELING LIGHT