Kata Bags

[doublet]

Is anyone currently using or have you used a Kata camera bag. What are your thoughts?

[freakin]

I've been using Kata bags for all of my video gear. They tend to be a little more reinforced than the Lowepro stuff that I've used. As far as photo gear goes though, I haven't looked in to anything that they make yet. To give you an example though, my Kata bag that I use has a thick metal ring that goes around the perimeter of it to keep it from being crushed and the sides have reinforced ribs, basically an exoskeleton to keep it from getting roughed up. My bags get tossed around a lot if I'm going on location, so that's a concern of mine. I don't like hauling around Pelican cases, and I can't justify paying the premium for Porta-Brace gear.

I guess what you need to figure out is what you're going to be putting your bag through. If you're not too rough with your gear, then a Lowepro bag is plenty, and likely more convenient and cheaper.

What models are you looking at?

[doublet]

Looking at the Rucksack 465 or 467. I have used lowepro bags in the past but I am looking to move into a backpack type of case as majority of my photos are landscapes.

I was looking at bags and came accross the kata bag. Never heard of them and was wondering about quality. Thanks for the input ahead of time.

[freakin]

If you're looking in to backpacks, look at Burton's stuff. I have their Zoom bag, and absolutely love it. It doesn't look like a camera bag, which is a huge plus if you're traveling and it actually fits like a proper backpack should. I find the camera companies haven't quite grasped this idea yet. The rest that I tired felt like a cube with straps. The Lowepro ergonomics are a joke. Also, because of this, I have no problem snowboarding, mountain biking, bmxing, or skateboarding with it. It can get on the heavy side, but that's just me feeling the need to pack everything. I have the older version of this, so I'm not too sure what the updates have been. On mine, you access all of the gear from the back, so you have to take it off to get at the gear. This helps to keep people out of the bag, and is the major part of why it doesn't scream 'Expensive camera gear in here! Come rob me!'. It has compartments for 35mm film cans, and straps to carry a snowboard, shovels, or in my case, tripod and stands

Just to give you an idea if what I cart around in mine to get a feel for it's size, this is what i generally have in it:
2 bodies w/vertical grips
70-200
16-35
4 primes
2 flashes
3 pocket wizards
Smaller tripod
2 small light stands
misc gear, batteries, charger, diffusers, filters, etc.

You have to get a bit creative at times to fit all of that in there, but it works, and is very manageable when I scale down the kit. There's also a small section at the top that's away from the camera gear that I can stuff a hoodie in to, or whatever I need for the day.

As you can tell, I'm very happy with it. My only beef is that it's a bit of a pain in the ass if I need to get in to the bag a lot while moving around (events, weddings, car shows, etc.). I just bought a large top-loading bag for that kind of stuff and just swap my gear between the two depending on what I'm going to be shooting. Well that and you'll find that most snowboard shops only bring in one or two of these each year and they're usually already spoken for or are sold rather quickly. It's worth stopping in at Mission and talking to Ken or Dom about it though.

Hope that helps!