Digital Camera Bag
The guide's aim was to help you find a bag that protects the camera, and the criteria hold up. What has changed is who needs one.
The single most useful principle, then and now: do not buy a bag that looks like a camera bag. A padded insert dropped into an ordinary daypack or shoulder bag protects the same gear and does not advertise it. Camera-branded bags are read correctly by the people you would rather not be read by.
What to actually check:
- Access speed. If getting the camera out takes both hands and ten seconds, you will not bother, and the pictures you miss are the cost of the bag.
- Padding where it matters, which is the base and the sides. The top is the least likely impact.
- Somewhere dry for a spare battery and cards, separate from the camera so a knock does not scatter them.
- Rain. Almost nothing is waterproof. A rain cover or a liner is the cheap fix.
What to leave out of it: the lens you might use, which you will not; the tripod, unless you have a reason; and the second body.
Two additions since this was written. Silica gel, because moving between air conditioning and humid air condenses water inside a lens and is the main tropical killer. And a plan for backups: cards are cheap, so shoot to a fresh one each week and keep the used ones somewhere other than the bag.
Part of the guide to cameras and photography.