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Home >> Photography >> Accessories Lowepro Pro Trekker
I personally find nature/landscape photography to be the most satisfying and love an opportunity to head out to a nature trail and do some hiking while keeping an eye out for photographic opportunities. In order to handle my equipment needs outdoors I’ve gone through a few backpacks already (all Lowepro brand), from the small Orion Trekker to the middling Nature Trekker through to my current Pro Trekker. The Orion and Nature Trekkers are gone now as they did not fit into my backpack needs anymore but I’m not so sure that I can live with just the Pro Trekker either. More on that later. The Pro Trekker is Lowepro’s second largest heavy-duty backpack. Noted professional wildlife photographer, Moose Peterson, apparently had quite a bit of input into the design of this bag, which is a little bit smaller than the massive Super Trekker. Since I already owned the Nature Trekker previously I already knew what to expect from the Pro Trekker in terms of style and comfort. The Pro Trekker handles quite well for a backpack that is just slightly smaller then a full-sized, expedition-style hiking backpack and given how much equipment the Pro Trekker can carry, comfort is a serious issue to consider. Lowepro makes a big wave regarding its shoulder harness system being the best in the business. I can’t compare Lowepro backpacks with any other companies offerings but I can state that the Lowepro harness is quite effective with a heavy load in the short time I’ve owned the Nature and Pro Trekkers. While the Pro Trekker is large and quite weighty by itself at nearly 15lbs, it is not as unwieldy as the massive Super Trekker. The Pro Trekker straddles that comfort zone between big enough and too big. It obviously means that a large amount of photo gear can be packed in and when first configuring the backpack for my needs I organized it so that I could carry both a medium format and a 35mm kit, both fully capable systems, meaning nearly everything I owned. Big mistake! A fully loaded Pro Trekker is damn heavy and with my equipment, it would tip the scales at 50lbs plus. 50lbs plus is not overly heavy for a healthy person to pack in the woods or trails for a short time but for an all day hike it is most certainly not what I would want to do. I’m no wimp either as I’ve done my share of humping heavy packs over long marches in ill defined woods during my short sojourn in the army reserves and with packs that weighed well over 50lbs. But since I’m not a stupid 20 year old anymore (just a not as stupid but older 30 years now) I try not to punish my body too much – something my wife can attest too as she points out my ever growing midriff. I bought the Pro Trekker to replace my Nature Trekker to address some concerns and shortcomings I felt the Nature Trekker suffers from. Firstly, too little storage space and pockets for non-photo related items. The Nature Trekker could fit in either a full Bronica 6x6 kit or a full 35mm Nikon kit but not both. No problem really as I can work with either or but I didn’t like having to sacrifice food and water to do so though. And oh yes, some protective clothing to handle changing weather would be nice too. Most of the Trekker backpacks have the brilliant All-Weather protection cover to shield the bag and your equipment from the rain. So your gear stays dry but you suffer since you sacrificed the raincoat in favor of your filter kit or that extra long lens and stupidly thought the nice day would stay nice up in the high country. I just need to remind myself that I live in a temperate rainforest region that receives more rain then it does sunshine. So the Nature Trekker is out and in comes the larger and quite expensive Pro Trekker. I reveled in its larger size until I tried to fit in everything I had and realized that I still had to sacrifice my raincoat although I could finally accommodate food and water since the Pro Trekker comes with two additional storage pouches that are extra cost for the Nature Trekker. Bonus! I’ll still freeze but at least I won’t starve or dehydrate. It slowly dawned on me that as much as I would like to carry two formats in the field, it really isn’t practical or comfortable. My idea was to carry a fairly full Bronica kit of:
So I clarified my needs and modified the pack to adjust to my new settings, which would be just one system at a time and if I come across something that would be ideal for the format kit left out then so be it. I would just work on subjects that would work within the limitations of the chosen kit. For example if I favored the Bronica kit over the Nikon then it means not getting scenes any wider then what the 40mm can handle (about 24mm in 35mm format) or shots any longer then the 150mm lens doubled up to 300mm (about 180mm in 35mm format). This way the Pro Trekker becomes more reasonable and it also means less worrying about which format I should choose to use for a given subject. More importantly the Pro Trekker finally offers some good practical space for items of a non-photographic nature. A hiker or nature photographer should bring some minimal equipment into the field for survival no matter how close to home or how short the hike. Food, water, first aid kit, space blanket, matches, flashlight and of course rain gear need not consume a large amount of space. All of the above could fit into a space large enough to accommodate a modest-sized shaving kit. A recent hike with good friend Tony gave me some more thoughts in terms of outdoor packing needs. Tony drove us out to the Lynn Canyon Watershed, a park that has several long trails and borders by the one of the major Vancouver area watersheds (a protected habitat that is a source for drinking water). We only did a short loop trail that took us less then two hours to complete but there was an uphill section that had me feeling sick to my stomach as I lumbered up the trail with a full Pro Trekker on my back. Not overly steep and plenty of wooden stairs and switchbacks to help hikers along but given that I had become quite sedentary in my ripe old age (just turned 30 you know) the heavy pack winded me. Without that extra 50lbs on my back I would have handled the trail fairly well and I would have been in my more familiar position of being ahead of Tony on the trail instead of behind (oh my poor ego – can you hear the violins playing their songs?). After that session I gave the equipment packing needs some more thought and basically came to some questions, generalizations and observations.
From this thought process I had a more careful look at Lowepro’s Street and Field system and specifically the Rover AW kit that comprises of the Rover AW backpack attached to the Deluxe Waist belt and shoulder harness system. This basic configuration is most certainly not better then the Pro Trekker since the same problem of having to unpack the bag to access the gear and tripod is still there. But since the Street and Field (S+F) system is all about modularity and since there are a number of different equipment pouches configurable on the waist belt and harness system, this is where the major advantage comes into play. A top loading camera case such as the Top Load 70 AW (can accomodate the F100 with 80-200mm lens attached) with an extra lens case attached on one side of the belt would handle the main equipment needs. The other side of the belt could see a Utility Pouch and Water Bottle holder. The harness can have a couple of pouches for a cell phone and light meter and the Rover backpack itself can be used solely for food and clothing needs or in some combination of extra photo gear that aren’t used as frequently as the main gear stored on the belt section. The Rover SW accommodates a tripod also but now we’re back to the issue of having to unpack the system in order to start shooting. That’s another possible configuration to the S+F system that I also have in mind. That is to dispense with the Rover AW section and to use a large accessory pouch such as the 85AW or even using my Reporter 400 as an extra large fanny bag. All Reporter shoulder bags (except the smallest Reporter 100) can utilize the S+F belts to take the burden off of the shoulder and on to the legs and waist. Again the Reporter bag would be used for non-photo gear essentials and a simple bungee cord setup could secure a tripod to the bag for fast access. The downside to this is that I would need to buy a smaller tripod as my current Gitzo 1345 would be too large to pack horizontally. Then I loose the weight handling and stability that my mid-range Gitzo provides me (especially important for medium format needs). Tripod issue aside, the S+F system I’ve thought of above is basically a civilian version of my military webbing that I wore on exercises in the bush. I was quite struck at how similar the S+F belt and harness system is to the military web belts. Although Lowepro calls it Street and Field to denote use in the city and out, I personally would not use such a system for working in the city. A photographer’s vest is something that can at least blend in somewhat in the concrete jungle (so many tourist wear vests also) and many photographers try to be inconspicuous when shooting on the street to provide some comfort and discretion to their subjects. A full S+F system is anything but inconspicuous and people will stare and be wary of you and your actions and intentions. Strictly for the Field and not the Street in my humble opinion. Where does that leave my Pro Trekker? I have to give some further thought to the possible purchase of my own Street and Field system as the costs are not exactly cheap and would probably come close to what the Pro Trekker cost me. Photo bags are notoriously overpriced for what they really are and compared to similar sized hiking bags, photo bags can often be 100% more costly. I can’t imagine that the exterior structure of the bag is overly costly since photo packs are more or less the same as hiking packs. The major difference is really in the padding offered by photo packs and bags. I have a hard time understanding how some pieces of foam and foam covered plastic can add such more added cost to the basic pack. It seems anything with photography written all over it is an invitation to write your own profits. In Canada this is very definitely the case with the Domke Photo Vest (more on that here) in which the Canadian distributor is very obviously padding its bank account in relation to what the vest is really worth. The Pro Trekker still has a place because there will be times when I do want to pack a lot of gear onto the trails and no other bag will do so with as much comfort. My friend Tony packed my Pro Trekker for a few minutes and he remarked at how well the harness system felt despite the heaviness of the bag. Ideally, I think you need two backpacks. One for light duty hiking (the kind that I tend to do more of) and another large one like the Pro Trekker for hauling the equipment to a remote base camp to work out of. I really can’t see a person hauling so much heavy equipment (without even any camping gear added in either) for days at a time. It was after these thoughts and experiences that I finally understood Galen Rowell’s constant search for the ultimate in lightweight shooting. Galen has recently marveled at the very small and lightweight Nikon F80 camera body and how it would fit in so well for his weight-restricted requirements in doing his runs or fast hikes on the trails near his home in Berkley, California. He often travels with no more then 5-6lbs of equipment including his 2lb Gitzo tripod, a lightweight camera body with some small primes or even some consumer-quality telephoto zoom lenses in order to shed as much weight as possible. From what I can gather of his habits, he likes to get to a site as quickly as possible and packing a large backpack that alone weighs three times as much as his entire lightweight kit is most definitely not his style. I’ve seen the light and I too see restricted use of the Pro Trekker for some light duty hiking around the Vancouver area of British Columbia. BUT if you do tend to hit the really wild bush and own a few large lenses and pro-sized camera bodies then the Pro Trekker is the one to give serious consideration to. One of the reasons why I don’t care for the Super Trekker is because I’m not overly tall and the larger the bag the more awkward it becomes to pack. The Pro Trekker is a better fit for my body and it carries almost as much equipment as the Super Trekker BUT just because it can does not mean that you should! Your back and shoulders will thank you for it. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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A
person getting seriously involved in photography will require a photography-oriented
backpack sooner or later. Depending upon the style of photography chosen
or desired of the starting photographer, that need could come almost
immediately. If your style is for wildlife, nature and landscapes then
you will require a backpack of some sort very quickly for the most effective
manner to carry equipment into the field. 