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GEAR: Crumpler December Quarter bag
Tutorials and Reviews
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Crumpler December Quarter
Review by DoctorIt.
This is currently Crumpler's (and perhaps anyone's) largest over-the-shoulder bag. It's huge, no really, it is. But it has to be, we ask a lot of our bags. My motivation in getting this one was as a travel bag. I go to lots of conferences and meetings, and want all my gadgets in one bag that I can access when its under the seat in the airplane. This fills that void.
As of March 2006, Crumpler USA tells us this bag is discontinued, but a savvy person may be able to find it in Europe. I actually scored this one by accident at the Crumpler store in Praha. I didn't even know it existed!
Like I said, it's big. Almost half a meter across the top!
When you flop open the messenger style top you are greeted by this neat internal top flap with two small mesh compartments. It's stiff, to keep the top shape of the bag and give your camera gear underneath protection. Nice design. Great for flat things... biz cards, flattened chewing gum. The outer flap has a zipper to access it. I never put stuff in there, but you could.
The internal divider flap thingie (for flat stuff) is held down by that gray tab with the Crumpler logo man. That oval black velcro up in the top of the photo on the outer flap also mates with this internal flap. Does that make any sense? In other words, it has two positions it can live in.
See the next photo, might make more sense.
Here you can see the hard internal flap pocket divider thingie velcroed up to the outer flap. God I love this description! LOL
Inside you see the huge velcro lined interior. I only have one divider in there at the moment. It comes with about 7 of them ranging from large to tiny, so you could make nice homes for all your little gadgets.
The critical inside dimension: almost 300mm or 11.5 inches. This is from the very bottom to the top of where the stiff internal flap-divider is sewn in. You could probably stuff it higher, but the flap divider would close awkwardly.
In practical terms, you can shove a D2H with a 70-200VR mounted into the bag, no problem. Behind it is the laptop sleeve, which will easily swallow a 15" laptop. I put my 12" powerbook in there and have room for some magazines too, and a banana on the side (due to the extra width).
In case you were wondering, that camera setup is 290mm or 11.5 inches.
On the front of the bag you can also see the two outer stow pockets. The smaller of the two has a neat access grommet for your funky white headphones, or whatever. It's also my only pet peeve. That pocket is so small, I can't fit my hand in it (I have been called beef mitts in the past, though). Smaller hands will do better.
There is also a great internal pocket that spans pretty much the whole front of the bag. See that zipper on the top left there? That slides all the way across. Files magazines other flat stuff will go great in here. I keep all my pens in the divider there. Very handy.
I wasn't kidding, it's HUGE! But, it's manageable. You can definitely load this bag to the point of it being very heavy, but with my daily load of laptop, D70 w/24-85mm lens, and lunch, it's not bad at all. As we all know, camera bags are stiff, so it doesn't conform to you like a messenger bag, but surprisingly it carries well. I'm an avid cyclist and former wannabe messenger, so that's saying a lot. The shoulder pad is long and slides on the strap easily, and there is a quick adjustment buckle for strap length - this should be very familiar to messenger bag junkies.
It's a great bag. Big, but only out of necessity.
Review by DoctorIt.
This is currently Crumpler's (and perhaps anyone's) largest over-the-shoulder bag. It's huge, no really, it is. But it has to be, we ask a lot of our bags. My motivation in getting this one was as a travel bag. I go to lots of conferences and meetings, and want all my gadgets in one bag that I can access when its under the seat in the airplane. This fills that void.
As of March 2006, Crumpler USA tells us this bag is discontinued, but a savvy person may be able to find it in Europe. I actually scored this one by accident at the Crumpler store in Praha. I didn't even know it existed!
Like I said, it's big. Almost half a meter across the top!
When you flop open the messenger style top you are greeted by this neat internal top flap with two small mesh compartments. It's stiff, to keep the top shape of the bag and give your camera gear underneath protection. Nice design. Great for flat things... biz cards, flattened chewing gum. The outer flap has a zipper to access it. I never put stuff in there, but you could.
The internal divider flap thingie (for flat stuff) is held down by that gray tab with the Crumpler logo man. That oval black velcro up in the top of the photo on the outer flap also mates with this internal flap. Does that make any sense? In other words, it has two positions it can live in.
See the next photo, might make more sense.
Here you can see the hard internal flap pocket divider thingie velcroed up to the outer flap. God I love this description! LOL
Inside you see the huge velcro lined interior. I only have one divider in there at the moment. It comes with about 7 of them ranging from large to tiny, so you could make nice homes for all your little gadgets.
The critical inside dimension: almost 300mm or 11.5 inches. This is from the very bottom to the top of where the stiff internal flap-divider is sewn in. You could probably stuff it higher, but the flap divider would close awkwardly.
In practical terms, you can shove a D2H with a 70-200VR mounted into the bag, no problem. Behind it is the laptop sleeve, which will easily swallow a 15" laptop. I put my 12" powerbook in there and have room for some magazines too, and a banana on the side (due to the extra width).
In case you were wondering, that camera setup is 290mm or 11.5 inches.
On the front of the bag you can also see the two outer stow pockets. The smaller of the two has a neat access grommet for your funky white headphones, or whatever. It's also my only pet peeve. That pocket is so small, I can't fit my hand in it (I have been called beef mitts in the past, though). Smaller hands will do better.
There is also a great internal pocket that spans pretty much the whole front of the bag. See that zipper on the top left there? That slides all the way across. Files magazines other flat stuff will go great in here. I keep all my pens in the divider there. Very handy.
I wasn't kidding, it's HUGE! But, it's manageable. You can definitely load this bag to the point of it being very heavy, but with my daily load of laptop, D70 w/24-85mm lens, and lunch, it's not bad at all. As we all know, camera bags are stiff, so it doesn't conform to you like a messenger bag, but surprisingly it carries well. I'm an avid cyclist and former wannabe messenger, so that's saying a lot. The shoulder pad is long and slides on the strap easily, and there is a quick adjustment buckle for strap length - this should be very familiar to messenger bag junkies.
It's a great bag. Big, but only out of necessity.
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