Searching for Mr Goodbag

Today’s Post by Joe Farace

Regular readers know that my mirrorless camera bag of choice has been Think Tank’s Retrospective 5 because of its practicality, size and retro good looks. As I kept adding new gear to my system, I outgrew the bag. Panasonic Lumix GX1, Lumix GF3 body, Olympus 14-42mm lens, Olympus 40-150mm lens, Panasonic 12.5mm 3D lens, Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens, Olympus 17mm f/2.8, and battery chargers, cables, and miscellaneous flotsam and jetsam.

My current solution has been the CityWalker 10 in Black ($124.75); it’s also available in Blue, actually black trimmed in blue. This is a beautifully crafted bag made from extremely classy looking fabric whose external dimensions are 12.4 x 9 x 6.7-inches, making it just a little big bigger than the Retrospective 5 but it holds more gear plus that iPad. The City Walker 10 has a removable padded insert along with that dedicated tablet or laptop pocket making it true multipurpose bag. There are three sizes to choice from (10, 20 and 30) so one of them should fit whatever gear you have in mind to fill it with. If you pull out the padded insert, the CityWalker switches from being a camera bag to a standard messenger bag. In either configuration the CityWalker conforms to your body making it the perfect walk-around bag for urban environments.

All of the exterior fabric is treated with a DWR (durable water resistant) coating while the fabric underside is coated with PU (polyurethane) for water resistance. The bag uses rugged YKK RC Fuse (abrasion resistant) zippers, has two Derrington mesh pockets on either end, and antique nickel plated metal hardware.

Internally there are removable, reconfigurable closed cell foam dividers made from 210D silver-toned nylon, a PU backed Velex liner, that’s all stitched together with 3-ply bonded nylon thread to make it as strong as it is attractive. There’s even a nice 2x PU coated nylon 210T seam-sealed taffeta rain cover in it’s own bag. In short, it’s highly functional, well made and looks great.

I’ve had a lot of fun with the City Walker 10 but there’s no room to grow as I’ve added new lenses and two new camera bodies. I have been looking for a slightly larger replacement but can’t find anything I like as well as this bag.

PS. And lest you think that my Retrospective 5 will sit idle…Nope it has already been grabbed by Mary for her mirrorless Nikon V1 system.