I continue in the quest for the perfect camera bag. I've bought them all, but none of them really do what I want. Maybe my requirements are impossible to satisfy, maybe even contradictory. Specifically for backpacks, here's what I need:

• Something which will fit large 35mm cameras. Most "SLR" bags aren't big enough. Trust me on this.
• The bag's got to fit into the maximum legal carry-on size. Experience shows that if the bag's small, you can easily get 35kgs past even British Airways staff.
• It must not have wheels. If you need to wheel the thing, it's too heavy to carry.
• It must be too small to carry a Canon 600mm, or I may be tempted to buy one and then I'd have to lug that around too.
• Something flexible. I 'm not going to expect to be able to snowboard and swim with the same bag, but I need something which I can drag up mountains as well as down dales.

Actually that doesn't sound too hard.

I have various Crumpler and LowePro backpacks already, including:

• Crumpler Formal Lounge

  The Crumpler "formal lounge" is my standard London bag - it's anonymous, it doesn't have lots of strappy tat hanging off it, and it can take a good sized portable plus a 1-series SLR without trouble.

  It's almost got rear access: you have to sit it on its base to open the back, and really it's more like traditional top access. You can get the stuff out of the top of the bag that way, but not the camera, which lives in a compartment at the bottom. That one you can only open from the "front".

  The padding's mostly removable, which I like as I can get more gear in it. It's fairly useful, but it's a "formal lounge" bag - not really much use for the outdoors: no axe loops, pockets etc.

• LowePro Nature Trekker II

  The LowePro Nature Trekker II is my standard travel bag. It's big and heavy, probably over the hand-baggage 6kgs allowance before it's loaded. On the other hand I can fit all my gear in it, and it's a tolerable carry even when full. It comes with a piggy-back little day sack, which is useful under some circumstances, but it kind of gives away the game: the bag itself is big enough to be left at home rather than carried.

  As with many LowePro bags it's full of padding. I'm not really sure why that is; whenever I need to fill the bag I just rip it all out as it gets in the way. A little bit of foam isn't going to save anything if you drop the bag, and you don't need it to separate the stuff if you leave it in the supplier's pouches.

  The tripod holder's a joke - I'm not sure what sort of Tripods Lowe's people use, but I don't have any small enough to fit in that thing. Plus the little elastic-band straps: what are they supposed to hold? They're good for jackets, but not for ropes or boards or tripods.

  The most annoying thing about the bag is that it opens the wrong way - you have to put it down on the straps to get at it! I guess the designers didn't talk to anyone who ever goes out in the rain, or on snow. If you're listening Greg, my dream would be to test decent bags, and I wouldn't make mistakes like putting the straps on the wrong side of the bag ;-)

But I'm still not happy. I tend to use the LowePro NTII for anything other than casual day-to day stuff, but it's far from perfect. Having used just about every type of bag, I really can't see the logic in conventional "front opening" bags like my LowePro Nature Trekker II: I have seen people pick these up and have their gear spill out in all directions, as there's nothing to stop you picking it up unzipped. Plus you're forever dumping the straps on the ground, which is just daft. So this is a key requirement too, maybe the key requirement:

It has to open from the "rear" - the side with the straps on it. 

Looking at the alternatives, there are only two bags which have true rear-access: the Burton Zoom or the Dakine Sequence. You can't get either for love nor money (well I only tried offering money...) world-wide most of the time, which is perhaps a good sign. I managed to locate a Dakine Sequence from a shop near Dakine's headquarters in Oregon, so that's what this review's about.

More