Into the lens

What would a bicycle ride be without photographs? Now that the world has advanced beyond the standard chunky SLR film camera and pokey little Instamatics, we have digital technology practically being given away in breakfast cereals, hiding inside phones, on top of baseball caps and bicycle helmets, or inside your computer screen frame. But you can't wield a MacBook webcam back-to-front for holiday snaps, nor can you buy huge hunks of magic glass for your mobile phone, even if it does have eleventy billion pixels behind its pinhead-sized lens. So as always, you trade off ease of portability for performance, compactness for versatility. Until last year I was making do, quite well on the whole, with my little Olympus with its whizbang 2.1 million pixel capture. It's still capable of taking perfectly good photographs and its feature set, good for its time, includes full manual control and an IR remote that does much more than simply activate the shutter. However, its slowness in focussing betrays its era and requires the user (i.e., me) to help it along when the action is quick. That was why I moved to the world of digital SLRs.

But now I have a problem: my Nikon has moving parts inside it; little fiddly, shiny, polished components that were aligned precisely by people wearing white suits and breathing masks. It's also bigger than my Olympus because it has a great big lens on the front, an angular-shaped flippy-up bit on the top, and it needs special batteries and everything. My have camera, have bicycle, will travel requirement hasn't changed though. My fun-sized D40 came with a LowePro TLZ1 bag; well, I say bag, it's more of a triangular pouch really. It's the ideal convenient size for the camera with the kit lens, and just small enough and padded enough to throw into a pannier alongside my usual paraphernalia. Underneath its zipped lid hides a small pocket for memory cards and remotes and so on, and a front pocket is available for batteries and remotes and a purse or wallet perhaps.

The slippery slope of photography, however, is not one to be ignored, and my little TLZ1 immediately lost out when I wanted to carry any accessories. For a time I was making do with my regular rucksack which is more than large enough but has no padding or other protection whatsoever, and that wasn't a good thing at all. Moreover, my telephoto lens came without a case, and the case the camera shop had thrown in for free (after my having to haggle, naturally) had turned out to be too small. In supporting local businesses rather than super purchasing power websites like Warehouse Express, I had paid full retail price, so I decided they'd had their chance. I needed a bigger camera bag.

I visited the larger but less local camera shop to see what was what. My soon-to-be sister-in-law, a freelance photographer, uses LowePro to contain some very expensive hardware and that was a good enough recommendation for me. I started by looking at small cases like the Cirrus 140, which was big enough for a camera plus either (and only either) a second lens or a flash, thus needing accessory bags; the Stealth Reporter D100 and D200 were neat and versatile, capacious, but big and square; and the Fastpack 200 was a very neat rucksack top half, and camera case bottom half. I was quite tempted by that one, actually.

But the more I thought about it, the more none of them seemed to fit the bill. Of paramount importance was a bag I could use while cycling, whether to put inside a pannier or to carry on me. However, I wouldn't be able to wear a rucksack while recumbent, and the height would preclude hanging it over the seat frame. A smaller shoulder case to fit inside a small 12 litre pannier wouldn't be big enough anyway, even though the camera hardware on its own would easily fit the pannier. A larger shoulder case could go inside my very biggest pannier (21 litres, plus or minus) with relative ease, but not all of my bikes are equipped with a pannier rack, and the boxy style with just a shoulder strap wouldn't work for riding. But then I found the Inverse 200 bag, which was a cross between a sideways Stealth Reporter and Specialized's ancient Power Pack 2 bumbag. That one disappeared off the shelves in about 1990, around the time bumbags went out of fashion, but featured a central square bag of decent size flanked by two waterbottle holders.


LowePro's Inverse 200, the grown up version of the 100, has a biggish single compartment that'll take a professional (read: big and heavy) DSLR with a medium zoom lens on it, plus another couple of lenses, and maybe a flash squeezed in there for good measure. The front panel of the bag has on its inside a thin expanding pocket for cables, remotes, keys, Powerbars, chocolate bars, and so on, and the panel itself can expand outwards to hold bigger stuff like notebooks, sandwiches, mini tripods or a Gorillapod perhaps. The very front (or the rear, I suppose, when you're using it) of the bag has a webbing loop on which you can hang an LED bike light. The bag also comes in a seawatery blue and a clovery green that I actually prefer to plain black.


The lid opens up with a pull on the finger loop, and to its underside are a couple of pockets for memory cards. The soft material is expertly placed to keep the screen of your DSLR happy and dust-free. As expected, the centimetre thick foam dividers of the main compartment are all adjustable for position, and are held in place with some of the strongest Velcro known to man.


By way of example, the modest collection of hardware contained within the bag includes a Nikon D40 with its standard 18-55mm lens, a Sigma 70-300mm telephoto lens, a Nikon Speedlight with a case, a second battery pack, and a couple of remote controls. The bag is actually big enough that I can put my camera inside (lens down, of course) whether it's wearing the telephoto or not. A 70-200mm f2.8 might be a bit long in that orientation, but would certainly go in if laid flat.

Turn the bag around and upside down and things get more interesting. The Inverse has an enormous waist belt with huge amounts of padding and wicking mesh material all around, and a great big quick release buckle with its own straps for adjustment. The sides of the belt have their own adjustment straps too to keep the bag tucked into the small of your back, and are perfectly placed to grab and pull. These are especially important if you add weight to the bag and bend forwards on the bike. But there's more; two D-rings at the top of the bag let you add a shoulder strap, which provides excellent three-point stability for walking, running, hiking, and even cycling. The waist belt, faced all around with two inch webbing, also includes two flattened loops for LowePro's 'Sliplock' accessory pouches which hook onto those loops and are secured with slabs of Velcro. You could alternatively hook on other accessories such as a mobile phone, a few karabiners, a torch, and so on.


To one side is a waterbottle holder made from stretchy mesh and with the usual strongly elasticated top and a firm base; to the other side is a smaller version that's not really designed for a bottle. It'll stretch to accommodate but the bottle will interfere with the lid of the main compartment. It's more of a pocket for stashing things like lens caps, chocolate bars or your glasses case.


Along the bottom edge of the front panel, where the orange label lies, is yet another pocket. Two strips of Velcro keep it snugged down, and lurking inside is a full raincover. LowePro has arguably missed a beat here by selecting a shiny grey colour instead of hi-viz yellow, but you'll find as many adherents to each colour scheme as detractors. The raincover is permanently attached to the lining of the panel which makes it a little more tricky to dry out, but does keep it handy.

Underneath the bag you find two more straps, this time with rather neat buckles combining quick release and locking adjustment, and there are Velcro tabs for orderliness. Here you can sling your monopod or tripod. A useful addition which LowePro has missed out would be a non-slip pad to help prevent a tripod sliding to and fro, though some rubbery material could perhaps be added to the tripod's legs instead. My tripod is 25" long (or wide) fully retracted, and is actually a little on the big side for manoeuvrability. Of course, it doesn't have to be a tripod; you could probably stuff a rolled up lightweight fleece there too.


So what's it like to use in the real world? I've done about equal amounts of hillwalking and cycling with the bag and it's very comfortable. I particularly like using the waist belt and shoulder strap together because it feels similar to my messenger bag and super stable. I could probably rely purely on the waist belt but I haven't tried it. To access my camera, I simply undo the belt and swing the bag around. I pull open the lid with my left hand and grab my camera with my right. The camera, the lenses and accessories slide in and out quite happily thanks to LowePro's standard interior of smooth grey polyester.

The front panel is a bit odd, I have to say. It's held in place a bit too well: by its own quick release buckles, the side straps to the waist belt, and the small sections of elastic at the base which prevent small items falling out. The zip to the inner pocket is on the inside, so it becomes a bit of a faff to access things. The waist belt with its luxuriant construction is almost impossible to stow away, although with some fiddling it can be buckled together behind the lumbar padding.

And were I designing the Inverse 200 mk2, I would line the base of the main compartment with twice as much high density foam, or with some stiffening. With the telephoto lens on my camera, the base of the bag sags and it's always the first bit to touch the ground. The Inverse isn't really designed for 1.2kg of camera and 1.3kg of lens, but it ought to be happy with my 0.5kg + 0.6kg combination.

But those are all niggles rather than outright failings. It's exceptionally well thought out and ideal for outdoorsy-type people who want faster access to their camera than a rucksack might provide, and a safer and more comfortable package than a regular shoulder bag. I'm keeping mine.