It is difficult to find a person, who is completely satisfies with his camera bag. I am not saying such a person doesn’t exist, I just have not met one yet, including me! Moreover such a bag doesn’t exist. I prefer to buy used camera bags than new ones. Because you buy then cheap, then sell them without losing much. All these years I owned numbers of camera bags. None of them satisfied me completely. Having bought and used so many bags, my honest opinion is, “one bag fits all”  doesn’t exist. Life will be a lot easier if you look for a bag that serves you most in your usual shooting style. The quest for the perfect bag is one of the biggest challenge for a photographer. Often we end up buying multiple bags, managing those bags is a big time headache.

It has been a while I added this Lowepro CompuDay Photo 250 bag to my inventory. This is a member of Lowepro’s backpack line. It will be continuous review and I will try to add more from my day to day experience. Honestly speaking  I am in love with this bag. It replaces my other bags including non photographic bags. Just for $75, this bag is really comfy and light enough to carry with you all day long. Cleverly designed and doesn’t look like a typical camera bag. Makes it easy to avoid unnecessary attentions.

This is a great travel bag with a comfortable easy-grip top handle and wide shoulder straps. CompuDay Photo 250  easily fits in Airline overhead compartments and it has a trolley sleeve to slide it over the handle of a rolling suitcase. For quick access it has a side mesh pocket and a front zipper pocket. It has a dedicated side pocket for camera, you can easily fit a Canon EOS 5D Mark II or similar fitted with 16-35mm L, 24-70 L similar sized lenses or a Canon 70-200 mm f/4L attached to 5D II with a little extra effort or  a 70-200 f/2.8 alone. Middle compartment is good enough to carry 2-3 extra lenses along with other accessories. I will suggest to use lens pouches for extra protection due to lack of dedicated padded lens compartments.  But there are also many smaller compartments that allow you to organize everything else, including hard drives, small electronics, keys, pens etc.

Photos

I took it to Sea World and Universal Studio in two separate whole day trip. I carried my Canon 5D Mark III fitted with Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM (II) lens in the side pocket and canon 70-200 f/4L IS in the main compartment (inside a lens pouch) together with a hat, shorts and a small towel. A Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the dedicated laptop compartment and a water bottle in the dedicated side pocket. Other accessories like cell phone, cable release, filters, batteries etc. in front pockets. What else you need to carry for a trip like this? They all fitted nicely and easily.

Pros

• Light
• Comfortable
• Intelligent design
• Doesn’t look like a typical camera bag
• Side compartment
• Laptop compartment
• Space for tablets
• Casual look

Cons

• Less Padding
• Lacks dedicated SD card  compartment
• No rain Cover

From my experience, this bag needs some improvements as well. Firstly they need to improve its padding. They can  make it a little bit bigger and add an all-weather rain cover.  Other than that this is really a cool and comfy little camera bag for everyday use. I hope Lowepro will bring those improvements in next version.

Technical Details:

Capacity:

Compact DSLR with kit lens attached; up to a 15.6” widescreen laptop; accessories; personal items. Note that the interior dimensions are taken while the camera compartment is collapsed. With camera compartment expanded the interior shrinks to 5.9 W 4.7 D 15.4 H in (15.0 W 12.0 D 39.0 H cm).

Size(Interior):  11.4W X 4.7D X 15.4H in./ 29 X 12 X 39 cm	Size(Exterior):  12.6W X 7.9D X 17.1H in./ 32 X 20 X 43.5 cm	Camera Compartment Inner Dimensions: 6.7W X 4.5D X 11H in./ 17 X 11.5 X 28 cm
Notebook Compartment Inner Dimensions: 10.6W X 1.4D X 15.7H in./ 27 X 3.5 X 40 cm	Front Compartment Inner Dimensions: 8.7W X .6D X 12.6H in./ 21 X .5 X 32 cm	Outer fabric: 600D Polyester 420 Nylon nailhead 840D/50t Nylon 1680 Ballistic Nylon Polyester stretch mesh
Interior Fabric: 210 D nylon Polyester stretch mesh Brushed tricot polyester