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EdinNJ
271
May 17, 2017
I have two Retrospective bags, one for m 4/3 kit, and one for DSLRs. I really like them, and they're my preferred walking around shooting bags. Usually when I'm shooting travel someplace, I carry the Retrospective bag emptied out and packed in my clothes, with my full kit and laptop in a travel backpack. Then each shoot, I select the gear that's right for that session and pack it in the Retrospective. I never take a laptop on a shoot, and that means I can pick a bag for the shoot smaller than if I had to carry a laptop - hence, backpack and Retrospective bag, each for its own purpose. (My backpack will have spare bodies, multiple flashes, etc - stuff that I don't need every day but if I need it, I need it.) At home, I keep the two bags packed with a good "all around" combination of lenses and bodies.
The accessories sections are well laid out, and the presence of a big open space for batteries, protein bars, or whatever needs an unstructured space like that, is excellent, something often missing on camera bags. Not EVERYTHING goes in a slot or compartment. I find the rain cover works OK... fussy, not easy to get right when you're racing the rain. I tend to not even bring it anymore, just a sheet of clear plastic that can be draped in seconds over the bag. People laugh at me... so YMMV. I can also say that if the bag gets wet, it dries out astonishingly fast.
The canvas cloth looks well used when you get it, and a little bit of normal abuse makes it scruffy enough that people don't pay as much attention as they would a lovely leather or flawlessly gorgeous canvas bag. Both of mine are green, the sandstone also looks very nice.
The only thing I'm not fond of is the shoulder strap being permanently attached. It's a nice strap, the pad is OK, but I have pads that I really prefer to use (that stick on a shoulder astonishingly well) and can't. It's the one real knock I have on the bag. Not a huge knock, though - I may be adding a third via this drop to be my Fuji setup.