I've used this backpack on two separate trips one to Japan and the other to Pennsylvania so I wanted to post a follow up regarding how well it performed for me while traveling.
Overall I have been extremely pleased with the backpack. It holds plenty of stuff. On my trip to Japan I had the E-M5 with grip, 40-150, 12 and 25mm lenses, my daily meds (you know you're not supposed to put your meds in checked baggage, right?) My travel documents, reading glasses and Kindle Fire in it. On top of all of that I had 72 pages of printed documentation that I wanted to read on the flight over to Japan. With it being a 13 hour flight I figured I'd have plenty of time for reading!
I realize the backpack is designed to carry camera gear so I almost hesitate to even mention this but since I'm sure others may use the backpack for dual purposes like I do you may be interested. My one complaint about the backpack is that it's just a little small to put a regular file folder into it without having to bend the corners down on the file folder to get it to close. Yes I know, totally stupid sounding thing to complain about, right? But it was annoying to have to bend the corners down each time I wanted to close the bag.
As far as traveling with the bag on planes it works great. On the two trips I flew on everything from small twin turboprop commuter plane to a huge 700 series jetliner and the bag easily fit in every overhead compartment or under the seat in front of me. It's small enough that I had plenty of room for the bag and my feet when I stored it on the floor.
Below are a couple of photos of me wearing the backpack. The first one was taken in Japan by a Japanese woman that saw me photographing flowers and asked me if I wanted my photo taken. She had a little trouble getting the shot because I had the 40-150 lens mounted at the time. The second shot was taken in the Ricketts Glen State Park in Pennsylvania. Donna and I took a trip up there to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary and we meet up with fellow Olympus E-M5 photographer Brent Pennington and his girlfriend Mandy for an afternoon of shooting. I suppose khaki shorts and brown shirts is my photography uniform :). The 3rd shot is how the backpack looks today. I've added two keychains to it for the places I've visited with it. I wanted to get little pins but you can't seem to find them in the airports anymore. I suppose the TSA thinks you'll try to hijack a plane using them or something. One plus of using the keychains is it makes opening and closing the bag easier. So not only do I have some flair on my bag (Office Space fans will get the reference) it's functional as well.
In Japan
In Pennsylvania
Bag with Keychains
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