I have always wanted to get a backpack photo bag for day-to-day usage. Upon a few considerations, I eventually got myself the Crumpler Sinking Barge for SGD$213.

This is my second Crumpler camera bag, and I will not be hesitated to own more of Crumpler’s bags in future simply because of its great padding, trendy design, excellent quality, and justifiable price tag.

I chose this color over the black outlook + olive green padding simply because the dark brown + oatmeal color makes the perfect Crumpler camera bag (simply my own preference). I had the dark brown + oatmeal color with olive green padding 7 Million Dollar Home, so I thought the orange padding would be a nice option for me.

Although I have not put this on my shoulders with the fully loaded gears, I can be assured that the pads will definitely give me a pleasant outings.

The first pocket offers a compartment for laptop up to 15″ screen size, another compartment for documents and files and a handy half-height space to store stuffs like water bottles, umbrellas, some t-shirts and shorts for short trips.

The compartment can definitely hold my 12″ Laptop easily.

Oh yes, the space within this pocket can also used to hold the laptop charger as well as my wireless mouse. Simple and neat!

When the two pockets are fully opened, this is how the bag looks like. Pretty well designed to fully makes use of the spaces.

As you can see, the second pocket comes with a detachable small padded bag. I believe that upon loading the camera gears, there are still spaces for stuffs like rolled-up jacket, reflectors, etc.

It has two padding that offer three compartments, perfect for a body with a lens attached on it, either a flash unit plus an extra lens, or two extra lenses.

Here comes the best part of this bag! When the small padded bag is detached from the bag, it allows the bag to go slimmer when looking from the sides. It solves the common issue of camera bag being used as a normal backpack, where it can get slightly too bulky. But now I can use this as my day-to-day backpack too! A bag for two usage, let alone this to justify its price tag.

I owned a Crumpler 7 Million Dollar Home for SGD$150 and it has served me very well for more than a year now. I will still be using it over the Sinking Barge for the following reasons:

• It simply holds more equipments (E.g. two DSLR bodies with lenses attached, a flash, an umbrella and a 600ml water bottle)
• this sling bag allows me to easily and immediately access to the equipments I need, simply the best choice for shootings when impulsive responses needed

Otherwise, I will try to carry this Sinking Barge for most of the time because:

• - the padded camera bag can be removed which turns the bag to be a day-to-day backpack (one bag for two usage)
• - optimal size to hold a laptop, a body with few lenses (not too large to compromise the weight my body is going to handle)
• - great padding for comfort backpack (this is important! as I’m getting neck strained from my sling bag when carrying the similar gears for a whole day trips / outings

Do check out other detailed reviews on this Crumpler Sinking Barge bag:

• - http://photo.net/equipment/bags/sinkingbarge.adp
• - http://www.shuttertalk.com/articles/sinkingbarge
• - http://www.imaginginsider.com/?p=82730
• - http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Crumpler_Keystone_Sinking_Barge_bag/

And check out the official site for the bag, to give you more excuses to get this bag