6 reasons why every budding photographer needs an awesome camera bag

In Partnership with Lowepro

Unless your camera collection amounts to a Sony RX100 compact, you can’t rely on a coat pocket to transport your photography gear. What you need is a solid, reliable camera bag.

There’s much more to one of these than just a spot to stash your DSLR or CSC bodies and lenses, though. Here are the six reasons why a bag is the number one photographer’s accessory. 

1. It keeps your expensive gear safe

Buying a good camera is a serious investment. When you damage a camera body or — even worse — scratch a lens, it’s heart-breaking.

A good camera bag helps you avoid this using special pouches that separate your kit. Even if you treat it rough, foam padding makes sure metal never meets metal: a recipe for scratched hardware.

^{Pictured: Lowepro Flipside Trek BP 250 AW}

These bags are perfect for travelling, but they’re just as useful to store your gear at home. After all, a bag will look much less alluring to small, inquisitive kiddy hands than a DSLR or shiny compact system camera.

Higher-end camera bags also offer water resistant top flaps. Even if all your lenses are weatherproofed, no one wants to walk around with a sopping wet camera collection.

2. Your 70-year-old self will thank you

If you have a decent camera setup, even if it only includes one body, it’s likely to weigh quite a bit. The Nikon D810 on its own is almost a kilogram, without lens.

Lugging that and a few good lenses around all the time is one way to get neck pain or, even worse, a lower back pain issue. And they can hang around for years.

^{Pictured: Lowepro Flipside Trek BP 250 AW}

A good camera bag lets you distribute that weight far more evenly, particularly if you opt for a rucksack rather than the shoulder-worn kind. It’s much cheaper than forking out for chiropractor bills a few years down the line.

3. It can grow and adapt to your needs

It’s always a good idea to buy a camera bag with a bit of spare room for any future upgrades, because a high-quality one could easily outlast your current setup.

^{Pictured: Lowepro Flipside Trek BP 250 AW}

The key is to look into how many lens and body compartments a bag has. These are often collapsible too, letting you turn a spot for three smaller lenses into the perfect home for a big zoom or larger prime.

These bags are much more flexible than you might initially assume.

4. It’s way easier to find your stuff…

A camera bag is also a great way to organise your camera kit. It’s like a filing system for your gear.

Not only does this mean you don’t have to rifle around in cupboards trying to find that prime you haven’t used for a few months, it makes the right lens much easier to find out in the field.

^{Pictured: Lowepro Flipside Trek BP 250 AW}

A lot of larger camera bags open up completely, letting you see their entire contents instantly and pick out the right piece of hardware without having to rummage. Some camera bags look like ordinary rucksacks from the outside.

They’re anything but.

5. …and you can use it everyday

There are no hard and fast rules about how you use your bag, though. While we tend to fill up a bag with our most commonly-used kit and leave it there, you can also use larger bags to carry laptops, bottles of water, an iPad… whatever you like.

Camera bags also tend to be jam-packed with zipped-off pockets that can hold dozens of smaller items. Not just memory cards and spare batteries, either.

You can bet they’ll be better padded than your everyday rucksack too.

^{Pictured: Lowepro Flipside Trek BP 250 AW}

6. But, most importantly, you can tell your photographer friends about your awesome bag

A great camera bag is a thing to be proud of, an integral part of your camera kit, not just a piece of fabric that keeps your photographic nearest and dearest safe.

There’s such an array to choose from these days you can choose a style that reflects your tastes. Plain black bags will always be there for those after the classic look, but some camera rucksacks don’t give away their identity so easily.

Not only can you get ones with style worth showing off, those that don’t instantly advertising you’re wearing a photography studio on your back come in handy too. Especially if you’re a street photographer rather than a shooter of idyllic countryside landscapes.

The Lowepro Trek BP 250 AW is out now for £125 from Lowepro.co.uk.