I’ve had this photo backpack for about 2 years and I guess now would be as good a time as any for a review. It has served me well and the way it’s built like a tank, I’m confident it will serve me many more years. Hopefully I won’t need another photo backpack ever.

I would recommend this bag to anyone who needs a sturdy backpack for his/her photo gear but then again, it’s hard to recommend something without knowing their specific needs. What follows is a detailed analysis of this bag, as applied to my own needs.

When I bought this bag 2 years ago, I only had the Canon 300D (no vertical grip), the 18-55mm kit lens, and a freshly bought Sigma 70-300mm APO lens. So the bag was pretty big for this setup. Looking back, I have no idea why I bought such a large bag. I guess because a couple of my photographer friends also had the same bag. Maybe subconsciously I knew that I would be married to photography for the rest of my life and I would need the extra space.

No matter what the actual reason was, I had bought this bag for a pretty good price which I don’t remember now but is irrelevant anyway.

One of the main reasons why I decided to write this review is because I’ve had time in those 2 years to discover its strengths and weaknesses. Another important reason is simply the fact that the bag is still being sold by Lowepro for around $130. For this price, I would say it’s about the best damn camera backpack you can find.

Lowepro CompuTrekker AW… let me break it down for those of you who don’t know what it means. CompuTrekker means it has a special laptop compartment. AW means All-Weather, basically weather-resistant; I’ll come back to that later.

Front of the Bag

The Lowepro CompuTrekker AW is a fairly large backpack. On your back it feels like a rectangular box with slightly rounded edges. It’s comfortable and soft on your back, the shoulder straps and rear of the bag are well-padded. I’ve worn it on many occasions for an entire day. It’s easy on the shoulders to begin with but after a few hours of carrying it, your back and shoulders start hurting. I don’t believe the design is at fault, but rather the fact that any such backpack would hurt the same and also that I eventually ended up with about 20 lbs. of equipment inside.

One instance where I was thankful my equipment was inside the Lowepro CompuTrekker AW was when I had just checked the bag out of an airport x-ray machine and I dropped it from the height of the conveyor belt, about 3 ft. The bag was fully loaded, of course, but the stuff inside was well cushioned and didn’t have a thing.

In typical Lowepro style, this backpack is very well constructed. It’s covered in a very tough synthetic material, which looks and feels impervious to water and the elements. Even then, Lowepro’s AW models have an extra rain-cover tucked away in a hidden bottom pocket. Here’s how it looks with the deployed cover.

It should be pretty damn impregnable to any rain, snow or wind. I would go so far as to believe that the equipment inside would survive a brief drop in a pond or river. Personally I have only deployed the cover once. On that occasion I was hiking with a group of fanatical photographer buddies through a forest, at night, down an overgrown path, lighting our way with flashlights. It was raining all the time and we climbed for about 5 hours. Hell of an adventure but I wouldn’t do that again. That was the most unproductive photo expedition I ever had.

This is how the bag looks from the back, when the rain cover is deployed. It doesn’t cover the back, of course.

Speaking of backs, here’s how the bag looks from behind. You can see the generous padding that makes it comfortable on your back. There’s also an additional strap that you can fasten over your middle, for extra support but I’ve never had to use that.

The front of the bag also has two compartments. The first one is double-zippered and contains soft pockets for papers, documents, small accessories, a couple of pens and also a key ring. For all practical purposes it’s impermeable.

The second compartment is secured by Velcro and is actually part of the tripod holding mechanism. More on that later.

Inside of the Bag

Now let’s move on to the more interesting part: the inside of the bag. Though initially I only had the 300D and a medium-sized zoom lens, later I collected other lenses and my equipment reached the stage where it is today. I would say it’s fairly matured, at least relative to my needs.

Today, I can fit all my junk inside it. Well, maybe with a few minor exceptions. I might drop some filters for others but otherwise most of the important stuff fits well.

The inside, like every other photo bag, is made up of a big padded area, which can be partitioned by soft-but-tough Velcro dividers. Initially it was intended for the camera to rest at the very bottom of the bag, lens up. However, I found it a real pain in the butt to remove the camera from down there, so I switched things around. Now, as you can see, the camera is on top, lens down, and the big Canon 100-400mm IS L is in the lower partition. I find the weight of the big zoom balances the rest of the bag, whenever I remove stuff from it.

I should mention that both the 300D and the newer 30D are always coupled with the vertical grip and they fit perfectly in that space.

Next, I’ve got a Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro which fits inside one of the lateral compartments. Opposite that is the Sigma 500DG Super external flash, which I always keep inside its soft pouch.

Below those two, I keep the excellent Canon 50mm f/1.4 and a Kenko 2x teleconverter. Even lower, I have several soft cloths. Between some of those dividers I keep a cleaning kit, a flash cord and a remote cable release for the camera. Sometimes, on longer trips, I squeeze in my portable hard drive, its cables and a flash card reader.

The inside of the flap has several pockets for filters and other accessories. Inside them I keep my 77mm circular polarizer and my 58mm circular polarizer, neutral density and gradual gray filters. I also keep a pair of lens caps and a couple of spare lithium batteries for the camera. Since I just bought a Cokin system and a few square filters, I will probably keep those in one of the pockets if need be. These pockets seem to be weather-proof themselves.

Details

As I previously mentioned, the whole thing is very well built. On each side there’s a strap which prevents everything from falling out if you forget to zip up the flap. If you do zip it, these straps can remain unfastened and hanging on the side. I would say their main purpose is to take some of the strain from the big zippers but unless you hold the pack upside down with very heavy equipment inside, that shouldn’t be a problem. I always close the straps when I’m hiking for a longer period without removing stuff from inside. Otherwise, if I need to switch gear in and out, I just close the zippers.

Speaking of zippers, there are two main ones around the main compartment lid (or the “flap” as I call it). These are thick and tough and also hidden behind a strip of the synthetic material that the bag is made of. They are smooth and never snagged, and believe me I operated those zippers hundreds of times.

On each side there are special wide loops which can be used for optional attachments from Lowepro, such as lens pouches and water bottles. I’ve never used these myself but they can definitely be handy in case you need to carry more gear than can fit inside the bag itself. In addition you might need those loops to attach stuff of your own, like a frying pan or a kerosene lamp. Well, not really but you know what I mean.

From the top you can access the special laptop compartment. It lies flat against your back and it’s protected by another, almost hidden, zipper along with a smaller security strap. I’ve never carried a laptop there so I won’t be able to tell you exactly how the bag handles it; however, it looks like it can easily carry a 15.4” laptop or even a 17”.

I do use this compartment, though for a slightly different purpose. I carry documents inside, A4 size or larger. The big advantage is that the document lies perfectly flat and has no way of crumpling. I forgot to mention that the inside of this compartment is padded with the same soft material that covers the inside of the main section. And it’s also waterproof, which is kind of a good thing for documents.

One other detail that I didn’t mention yet is that there’s a carrying handle at the top. As a nice touch, it’s covered by a flexible, perforated rubber grip.

Tripod Mount

The bag does have another useful feature: a tripod mount. The extra “pocket” fastened with Velcro that I mentioned earlier can be opened by lifting the flap, whereas another flap folds down. Two of the tripod’s legs fit snugly inside this pocket while the rest of the tripod is tied down by elastic bands located about halfway on the front of the bag. You can even tie it down further with the bands at the top of the bag, from under the carrying handle.

Having secured the tripod in this manner, it’s very comfortable to walk around carrying the whole thing. You won’t notice the tripod is there, unless you have to bend under some branches or under an overhang. Then the top of the tripod might snag on something (if the tripod is of the large variety).

One more problem with this setup (but I guess most bags with tripod attachments suffer from the same thing) is that when you put the backpack down, it has to lay flat on its back; you won’t be able to stand it on its bottom. Having said that, I still think that a tripod attachment is one of the most useful features such a bag might have.

A Sort of Conclusion

Having reached this point in my review I find there’s little more to say about the Lowepro Computrekker AW backpack, but I will try to offer a list of pros and cons from my perspective.

Pluses

- rugged and durable construction using high quality materials

- weather proof build enhanced by the included rain cover

- plenty of space for most photographers’ needs, although it depends on the length of the journey and whether the photographer must carry all his equipment on his back

- customizable soft-cushioned interior

- comfortable on the back and shoulders, depending on the length of the journey and the weight of the equipment (see below)

- lots of pockets for accessories

- weatherproof laptop compartment

- price

Minuses

- unfortunately, as any other backpack, removing the camera and/or lenses from the bag at a moment’s notice, while it’s on your back, is an almost impossible task. Backpacks are usually not designed for quick access, but rather for storage during transportation from point A to point B. Although I have used this bag extensively on all my trips whenever I needed more than 2 lenses, I have reached a point where I couldn’t compromise anymore on speed of retrieval. That’s why I bought a much “faster” although smaller bag, namely the Lowepro SlingShot 200 AW (review coming soon), just for the convenience of being able to pull the camera out quick and also change lenses without having to put the bag on the ground and opening the huge flap, thus exposing the contents to the elements and curious eyes.

- I’ve mentioned how comfortable the bag is but there’s a small caveat. Depending on the weight of the equipment inside and the time you spend wearing it, you can end up with a very tired back and shoulders. When fully loaded, my bag weighs around 20 lbs. That may not seem much but when you carry it for a whole day, while shooting an event most of the time, it gets really tiring; and I’m a moderately fit guy at that.

In the end, it boils down to personal needs. Do you need a photo backpack? By all means, get it! I highly recommend it. If I needed a new backpack today, the Lowepro CompuTrekker AW would be first thing on my list. Do you place a higher value on the ability to quickly access your gear? Then maybe a backpack is not the thing for you. Consider a shoulder bag instead or even better, something like the SlingShot.

I hope you have found my review useful and check back for a review on the Lowepro SlingShot 200 AW.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 at 11:13 pm and is filed under Article, Review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.