http://kellymoorebag.com/mens/kelly-boy/kelly-boy-bag-brown.html

I have been using the Kelly Moore “Kelly Boy” camera bag since my girlfriend gave it to me as a gift for Christmas a year ago. In that time I have used the bag a lot. I have carried it casually on social gatherings, shot three weddings with it, and made it my main camera bag. I’ll say it clearly right at the outset, it is my favourite camera bag, and the one I would reach for in most portrait shooting situations. Does that mean I think it is without faults, no! No camera bag is without faults, in fact, I suspect it is impossible for a bag designer to make a perfect camera bag, that is why most keen photographers have a few different designs for different situations. Personally I have a Lowepro camera rucksack, which I chose to take on holiday, but for shooting weddings, it had to be the “Kelly Boy”.

Firstly, the unique selling point of the “Kelly Boy” bag is its appearance. This is a man bag for your camera. It resembles nothing so much as a stylish courier bag or business bag. No one would look at it and think, camera geek, and in fact that is true of all of the Kelly Moore designs. This is its strength and its weakness of course:

Strength because it looks great and you can’t help but feel relaxed about using it at a wedding or social gathering as it looks cool and fits in well.

Weakness because in some ways it places style above function.

OK, so you get that I like how this bag looks, well what else do I like about it? The main thing is the top cover which folds completely back to hang down out of the way of the main compartment allowing you full and unrestricted access to your camera and lenses. In use at a photoshoot this is pretty much the exclusive way I use the bag. You simply reach down and grab the next lens as you chat with your subject without breaking stride or flow, this is priceless in portraiture. As long as you can limit yourself to the camera and three spare lenses, or in my case, the camera, attached lens, two spare lenses and a flashgun, the bag is perfect for being convenient and unobtrusive in use. The front pockets zip up easily and hold enough essentials for a shoot, like cards, batteries, and in my case, my pocket wizards. So in summary this always holds what I need for a portrait shoot, and I can’t ask more than that in a convenient and stylish package. I usually try to have a larger bag handy with my other lenses and bodies somewhere nearby, like in the car, as a base-store, but work from the “Kelly Boy” once I have chosen the lenses for my needs.

On the negative side, I couldn’t live without a good photo-rucksack as they have many of the features that I find missing in the Kelly Boy bag. Padding is an important  missing feature for me, the Kelly Boy compartments can be resized with velcro tabs as in so many camera bags, but they are simply cards covered in the man-made leather style material the bag is made from. They are in short, useful dividers but not padded or particularly protective; thankfully most modern kit is fairly sturdy and doesn’t need extensive padding to stop gentle bumping in normal-photo-session use, so this is a problem but not a major one in practice. It is worth noting that I have seen photos of the “Kelly Boy” bag with a more padded interior, so I am not sure whether there are more padded versions available. It would be worth checking with Kelly Moore about this if you are planning a purchase and this worries you. The more serious issue I have, is that the flap is held down by two unobtrusive magnets which are great in normal use, but let the top pop up too easily if you have picked the bag up at an awkward angle, say from your car boot for example; it is possible to have a lens slip out with potentially damaging consequenses. (This did happen to me, and now I’m super careful about it). I would like to see Kelly put an internal cover on the bag to hold things safely in the compartments during travel, but which could be easily removed in use. Another worry for me in the rainy West of Scotland is the gap left on either side of the flap when closed which can let rain in. I have been caught in a few rain showers and I have been forcibly holding these as tightly covered as I can to minimise ingress, but a nylon rain cover, or a fold out flap on the main cover to deflect rain if caught out would help. Of course I would never take the Kelly Boy out deliberately in the rain, but the reality is that you can get caught out!

The bag has the now obligatory slot behind the camera and lens compartments for a laptop or similar. I have no strong feelings about this, but I can’t imagine that I would use this bag to hold a laptop. The bag is all about casual and handy support of camera and lenses in my view, and with my 5dMK2, 3 lenses and a laptop, this would be an unpleasant beast to carry casually; certainly it doesn’t take up much space in the “Kelly Boy”, and so I don’t think it has cut down on spaces for the main purpose of the bag.

So my summary, if you are a guy, and you want a stylish bag to carry your camera that lets you access your stuff with casual ease, then this is your bag. There are other messenger style bags available, but this is beautifully finished and looks special with it’s detailing and designed appearance. If Kelly Moore was to make improvements to the bag to address my minor concerns, then I would probably want to buy a new one, and that is about as good an endorsement of my experience with the Kelly Boy bag as I can give.

This is a great bag, and I’m happy to endorse it with the minor but important provisos that I have listed.

You will also enjoy Kelly Moore’s excellent website:

http://kellymoorebag.com/

Note: My girlfriend bought herself the Kelly Moore B-Hobo at the same time, and might add a guest review of her own shortly?

(She also supplied the photos of the bag on me)

It is often said that the best camera you own is the “one that you have with you”. In the ideal world you would take your DSLR with you everywhere, since it is probably optically and in terms of responsiveness your best camera; you don’t always carry it though do you?

Around town you would probably feel a bit of a prat, and opt instead for a compact in your pocket since you aren’t sure you’ll take any pictures anyway. This seems a reasonable strategy since none of us want to look like prats! (Actually I don’t need a DSLR in the middle of the queue at Asda (Wall Mart to US readers) to make me look a prat, I have that covered already). But what if you are going hillwalking or trekking? Should you take the compact instead?

If you take the compact you will be able to hang it on your rucksack’s waistbelt and it will be simple to whip out at a moments notice. This is an acceptable strategy but remember:

Compacts have:

• Poorer dynamic range and will blow out skies more readily. The new generation look like they may be tackling this by doing virtual HDR in camera. Eg Fuji F200
• The Depth Of Field will be enormous and so artistic selection of your partner’s beautiful chops against a blurred mountainscape will be impossible and you will look like a rank amateur. (Actually that would at least be accurate in my case, but why advertise the fact).
• The low light landscapes will be grainy and noisy since the small sensors in compact cameras can’t yet do low light to anything like the standard of even a cheap DSLR. The sensors are generally at least 10X larger, often 15X or 20X larger.
• You suddenly see an Ibex out of the mist. Your compact doesn’t have the telephoto reach, but you have a 200mm lens for your DSLR. If it is to hand, the quality and reach will always trump your compact.

So you know you really should carry and use that DSLR, but you are a walker and you have a rucksack with your flask and sandwiches, your waterproofs and other safety gear. There’s barely room for a DSLR but you conscientiously stuff it in there anyway. That’s OK isn’t it?

Actually , no. I tried that a few times, as did my friends and you know what? You hardly take any pictures. Its just a lot of hassle to take your pack off and unbuckle it, dig for the camera, undo its cover, remove the lens cap and take the picture. Then you reverse the process, and heft the pack onto your back again and start walking. At that moment you see some lovely light hitting the ridge your descending and it is perfect. Do you dismount your rucksack again and get your camera? No you say, “sod that, it’s too much hassle.”

1st law of walking or trekking photography: “The camera that’s hard to get at won’t be used when it should.”

So your camera needs to be near to hand. Perhaps you could carry it in your hand? No. It will be tiring, it might get knocked against things, it might rain. A mountain gorilla might snatch it from you and run away. So you try what we all think is the logical next step. You get hold of a “holster style” DSLR bag with a loop to attach it to the waistbelt of your rucksack. For many people this will work fine, but personally I find it a bit limited. On the plus side the camera is at waist level, one buckle unclipped and the camera is in your hand, but if it is at the front, it might limit your thigh movement and hit off your legs while you walk uphill and drive you crazy. If you move it to the side of your waist you might find that it stops you from swinging your arms like a proper baubly-hatted trekker should. Many packs won’t even allow this because of the trend towards putting large pockets into the waistbelt at the side of your hips. This enlarges the belts at this point and means the “holster bag” can’t fit over these pockets and so has to sit at the front knocking irritatingly against your legs. For some people this is clearly OK, but most people find it irritating and will gravitate back to placing the camera in the pack: This of course will break the 1st law of walking or trekking photography:-)

Only one of the two friends pictured her finds the holster pack comfortable. I won’t of course say which:-)

So you won’t be surprised to know that I have a suggestion based on a bit of trial and error and a few extended trips to try out different approaches. My preferred option is to carry a waistpack at my front. The nature of a small waistpack is that the camera sits on it’s side rather than vertically like a simple holster bag. This means that it is less likely to impede your legs when climbing hills. Now this is a great solution, but there are two problems which need to be overcome:

1. The waistbelt of the waistpack wants to sit where the waistbelt of your rucksack sits. They can’t comfortably sit in the same place.

2. If the waistpack is too large then it will sag down and hit your legs again. This limits how much gear you can fit in it.

So the solution is The Lamont System. (Named by myself and my friends after my wife who came up with it and lashed up my first go at it). Because the waistbelts have to be on the same position on your waist, you need to attach the waistpack belt onto the waistbelt of your rucksack. You do this by attaching two corresponding plastic buckles to your rucksack waistbelt so that you can put your rucksack on as normal, then clip your camera waistpack on to the front, tighten it up and then enjoy one waistbelt, high enough to be out of the way of your legs, and the whole thing of course supported by your shoulder straps. This of course means that the waistbelt doesn’t need to be uncomfortably tight. (If you have tried a waistpack before on its own, you may have found it slipping down unless it was uncomfortably tight). I have found the Lamont System to be the most comfortable and practical way to carry my camera by far. I was on a guided trek around the Matterhorn last summer, and the guide expressed concern before we started that photographers often slowed the group by going through the pack removal that I described earlier. She was intrigued by the Lamont System. Suffice to say that I take 700 pictures of the party over 5 days trekking and never had to do more than unzip the pack and drop the lens cap into the pack, all while walking. Then stand still for long enough to nail the picture and put the camera back in the waistpack while walking! Our guide was happy and I took pictures the instant a great moment occurred.

Here’s my favourite set up in the Swiss Alps:

This shows it in use. Note I don’t even have to down sticks!

And a brutally enlarged close up from the first picture showing the extra plastic buckles sewn on to the rucksack belt. These buckles are readily available at all good outdoor shops.

Many packs will not have a fixing point for the buckles, so not every rucksack will be suitable. The waistbelts that have built in pockets again will thwart you. If the waistbelt is just a straight belt round to the rucksack back, then it’s easy to stitch on a buckle with a couple of loops of strong thread. Every rucksack will need to be judged individually for it’s suitability for the Lamont System. I’m happy to advise anyone who gets in touch.

I tried a larger pack for a Lamont System for our recent Great Glen way walk. This pack allowed me to carry a separate lens and more room for polarisers etc. I took my 40D and it’s 17-85IS lens with my 70-300IS lens and to be honest, although it was OK over 6 days walking, it wasn’t as perfectly comfortable as my main Lamont system with it’s smaller Lowepro pack. Previously I have taken my 40D and a general purpose Sigma 18-200 OS. In retrospect I will go back to the single lens. This is in keeping with the:

2nd law of walking or trekking photography: “The simplest DSLR system that gives the widest focal range is best.”

Note: The waistpack I favour is the Lowepro Orion Mini the one that is too large for a comfortable “Lamont System” is the Inverse 100 AW

My 17-85 and 70-300 are optically superior to my Sigma 18-200, but looking through my Alpine shots with this lens from last year, the quality difference was too small to matter. The kind of quality differences that matter in a lab test in “Digital Photography Review”, don’t matter in a walking trip. Catching the moment on your DSLR sensor is everything, minor lens sharpness deficiencies are nothing here.

Following my own 2nd Law I am going to return to my 18-200 for walking with a plan to try buying a smaller body such as a Canon 450D since it will deliver 99% of the quality of my 40D in a much lighter body. I might experiment with a 1.4X tele-extender if it’s small enough to go in the same waistpack with ease. If it won’t then I might upgrade to a Tamron 18-270 to stick with the 2nd Law.

Anyway, If you are a walker and a photo enthusiast I hope you will find my solution useful. If you have any other ideas then please let me know. Don’t go walking without your DSLR, that “moment” might never happen again!

Next step, on my first evening of ownership was to go to the websites. I liked the Panasonic custom fitting leather cases, but they are expensive, and no-one actually seemed to have UK stock. I loved them though, they add to the retro look of the camera, like a rangefinder case from earlier days. Next stop, as I didn’t want to order one from Japan, at £70 plus posting was the Lowepro site. This has a helpful PDF file listing the LX3 and telling you all the cases that fit the camera. They also gave the dimensions of the interior. I measured the required dimensions to accommodate the slightly fuller figure (in compact camera terms) of the LX3 and discovered that they were lying, almost all of them were too flat/thin to take the protruding lens.

Next day I went to Jessops with my LX3 in its protective polythene wrapper and tried another 10 cases, none of which fitted, including one which is offered by Jessops in an online bundle deal with the LX3! Finally success, I found only one, the Lowepro Apex 30 AW. I bought it there and then. My camera was now protected, and these cases are well made and include belt loops and shoulder straps for hillwalking etc, and this case would be ideal for that purpose. It still felt a little bulky and of course had to be taken out of the case to be used. The fancy Panasonic Leather one allows you to use the LX3 in the case. I looked again and found a UK dealer over a December weekend who took my payment and promised to send it next working day.

The next working day, Monday arrived with a glorious email, and I kid you not saying, “out of stock, we apologise for any incontinence“. So I phoned and cancelled my order as they were unsure when the stock might arrive. So finally, exasperated I ordered the Japanese suppliers original Panasonic case, paid by pay pal and settled in for a long wait. Actually it came on the next Thursday. That’s ordered late Monday morning Delivered Thursday sometime, from Japan to Scotland, UK. In case you care, the very courteous business was:

http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/giftshop-jp/

So do I like the case? I’ve used it about two weeks and I love it. It slips into a pocket neatly, as long as its a jacket pocket, it slings over a shoulder nicely if you have no jacket, it looks fantastic and you can even attach it to a tripod without removing the case. When you need to remove it, one simple screw into the tripod socket, which has an aluminium finger wheel is all it takes. It’s expensive, but it is really well made and wraps the LX3 in about as small a space as you could manage  while still offering physical protection.

Wouldn’t it be nice if manufacturers actually gave us a case in the box? I wonder how many people scratch these screens before they get one.

Here it is:

And with the top cover removed. In use you can just undo the 2 side-studs and it will hang by the bottom one so that you can take pictures instantly without working out where to pop the cover:

And the rear view showing access to controls:

And fully removed:

Here’s the excellent but different Lowepro:

and the back:

Now note the natty built in raincover, perfect for outdoor types. Remember this is a perfect handheld landscape camera with it’s 24mm lens.

And finally, the sleepy LX3 settling down for a snooze……..zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

night-night