Does this camera bag have an evil twin?

October 13, 2006 8:30 AM

Yet another camera bag question. I love this Lowepro Slingshot bag. It's basically perfect except for one glaring flaw - it's backwards!

This is basically everything I want out of a camera bag - I like the over the shoulder design, it's got enough space, it has a waterproof cover, and the vertical layout makes it not take up a tremendous amount of personal space.

Except that the chirality is wrong - it wants to go crosswise over my right shoulder or straight down on my left, and I find that very awkward. The bag it's replacing is a Tamrac Velocity 7, which fits crosswise or straight down on either shoulder. The arrangement of the straps on the Slingshot is such that it cannot be comfortably worn the other way, and if I pick it up with my right hand, there's no comfortable place to wear it.

Lowepro doesn't have a left-shoulder version of the bag - does anybody make a camera bag that's close to this design but which goes over the left shoulder? The vertical layout is important - I don't like most of the short, wide camera bags. Similarly, I'm not looking for backpack recommendations - it must be a one-shoulder bag.

posted by Caviar to grab bag (2 comments total)

If the pocket/zipper arrangement is acceptable (which it may not be, that's a pretty odd bag), you could try taking the bag to a shoe repair shop and asking them to remove and reorient the strap.

I've had bag straps repaired at shoe places before and they never seem to bat an eye about it. I would guess they would do it for around five bucks.

It might compromise the waterproofing of the bag, but not by much at all since the stitching would be against your back.
posted by bcwinters at 9:17 AM on October 13, 2006

I don't think that would work because of the way the pockets function. If I just did that, the flap to expose the camera would point down towards the ground in the front access position, and it would make the bag completely useless. The whole bag needs to be reversed in order to make that work.

Also, incidentally, the bag itself isn't waterproof - it's got an integrated cover that collapses into a pocket.
posted by Caviar at 12:00 PM on October 13, 2006