Backpack for hiking & camera gear

[bigblue1ca]

Good choice. Can't go wrong with f-stop. I just spent a week skiing with my Tilopa BC and medium ICU, and it was great for carrying my gear, lunch, and a few extra clothing pieces, not mention it was very comfortable.

[patham]

Received the Guru today.

Going to play around with it a bit before posting much more than this, but first impressions are that it's exactly what I was looking for.

[Ehcalum]

For others looking at backpacks for hiking, here is what I use: 1st generations ULA Equipmet Catalyst, custom made for me (I was a tester for them when I worked at a backpacking store), Think Tank Skin 75 pop down on one side of hip belt, Think Tank Skin 50 on other side. I carry the Skin Belt and body bag (for dayhike items) in the pack if I plan on having a basecamp, otherwise I forgo them. I keep my body in the top compartment or attached to my harness using clips. My tripod is a diy number using two trekking poles.

I've found that using designated camera bags as backpacks doesn't really work out, always taking the bag off, weight distribution is off and can get unbalanced when gear is in use as opposed to just riding in the bag. My set up allows me to have a 50mm 1.8 on the body, a 70-200 in the 75 popdown and the 24-105 or 17-40 in the skin 50 both ready for use. Pouches are not padded, weigh next to nothing and come with rain protection.

[patham]

So...I'm a bit late with this, but better late than never I guess.

Took the Guru with Medium ICU on a week long trip in the French Alps at the beginning of May.

My first thought on putting the loaded backpack on my back was something along the lines of "Wow...this is much lighter than I expected". While holding the backpack you can definitely feel the full weight of things in it when you put it on your back and correctly adjust the straps it almost feels weightless(*). I thought my previous backpack was good in this aspect, but the Guru blows it away. I had 500D, 4 lenses (17-55, 70-200 f/4 - camera mounted), 50 f/1.4, 100m macro), 3l of water and sandwiches for 4 people in the bag and it didn't feel like much at all, and I'm no way a sportsman.

Which brings me to the carrying capacity. I did not bring the tripod for this trip, so haven't been able to test the straps for fixing and carrying a tripod around yet, as the emphasis was on walking and not on taking pictures during this particular trip. I did however test every other compartment of the bag. The main area can easily take the medium ICU, 2-3 baguettes (chopped up into sandwich-sized bits) and a pullover and easily leave room for the other compartments. Front compartment can take maps, papers, extra memory cards, filters,... (I actually had the latter two in the ICU myself, but I can see people with bigger cameras/larger lenses moving stuff around).

When you open the middle compartment you are hit with actually how big the Guru is. You can still easily fit a lot of stuff in here even with the ICU in the big compartment pressing on this one. And you also have lots of meshes/zip pockets of which you can never have enough. I didn't fully use this area, but it still easily took a swiss knife, first aid gear and a flash light. Let me come back and stress this again. This bag has a *lot* of miscellaneous compartments for storing various gear. Always a plus (**).

Before I get to the ICU itself, one small quip about the bag would be that the mobile phone holder on the waist strap is a quite tight fit for an iPhone with a protector case. Just a small quip and it definitely would easily fit smaller phones, I'll happily blame this one on the iPhone's size rather than the bag's.

The ICU is very well padded, easily holds my gear (see signature) in whatever configuration I'd like. Hit the biggest problem with the bag in relation to the ICU though. The back zip area which allows access to the ICU from the exterior of the bag is a little bit too small for a medium ICU I found. It was quite a stretch with fingers to open/close the ICU while it was in the backpack so I tended to just leave the ICU itself open, just folded up for easier access. Still, even with the ICU unzipped in the bag, it provides more than ample protection as the back padding on the bag is very good. (***)

I also had the opportunity (****) to test out the rain cover. Fits perfectly, doesn't let any water through (and even though I didn't use one, also keeps the water pack tube exit free). Does its job perfectly.

Overall a very, very good hiking bag. Thank you for all the suggestions, definitely a purchase I'm very happy with.

(*) - although at the end of a day's hiking my feet/knees probably did feel the added weight, the weight distribution on back/waist is very very good.
(**) - except when you're still learning about the backpack and don't remember what you put where...
(***) - btaylor also seemed to notice this in his review (http://community.the-digital-picture...highlight=guru).
(****) - we had snow at 1600m at the beginning of May and quite heavy rain another day...

I also have pictures of what the bag actually looks like lying around on my iPhone (can't take a picture with my camera when it's loaded in the ICU...) but I'm at work now and don't have the cable for the phone so I'll put them up later.

[wilsonjohnpat]

Lowepro now has the Video Fastpack series which has a tripod carrying solution. I have a regular Fastpack 250 which I purchased just before they came out with the Video Fastpack series. When hiking, I put a hydration pouch in computer compartment and I find that helps with the rigidity issue. I find hiking without something in the computer compartment to be hard on the back. I picked the 250 because I was looking to use it as a carryon.

[btaylor]

Good to hear you're happy with the Guru Patham. It's certainly suprising how much you can fit in that bag.

With the back flap on the medium ICU, I just leave it unzipped but still tuck it up where it would be if zipped up. The back of the pack itself gets zipped up anyway so there's no risk of anything falling out and the flap provides a bit more padding as well.

The rain cover is good, however I left mine somewhere in the middle of Iceland. Spent the rest of my trip (Europe during Winter so there was a bit of rain on occasion) without it and never had any issues with water seeping inside. I will buy a replacement though in the event that I have to use the bag in heavy rain.

[patham]

I did exaclty the same thing, just leaving the ICU unzipped. Still, felt like it was worthy a mention as I was hard pressed finding anything negative about the bag!