My camera accessories collection has expanded enormously since I started, in the beginning my Lowepro Minimag AW (shoulder bag) was enough for me, but after buying another bigger dSLR and getting more lenses, a strobe and some small stuff the bag became to small for my gear. So I started looking for a different bag, and because I ride a lot on my bike with my gear I thought a nice backpack would come in handy.

Well, it didn’t, I can be clear about that. I’ve never used backpacks for my gear before this one, and well, it didn’t work out to well. And that might just be because I want to access my gear instantly. Other people who don’t need such instant gear access might and already own a backpack might be interested into this bag. The Naneu Pro Urban Gear U120 is a cheap bag, that comes about 110 euro (which is about 140 dollar and 75 british pound), and has a lot of space. The bag is rugged thick bag with lots and lots of padding, and a nifty feature. The bag actually consists out of two bags, the outer bag and the inner one. If you remove the inner bag, which holds the gear, you can use the back as an ordinary backpack. But, this is a very stif and sturdy bag, the padding is so thick that it always stays the same size The inner bag features several compartments, just like normal padded camera bags, you can insert your camera (EOS D60/5D/30D/350D/Nikon D80 but not 1 series ) with a telelens attached into the middle part, and has all kinds of smaller sizeable compartments around the middle compartment. The D60 viewfinder slightly pops out of the bag, but it will fit. 1 series cameras like the 1D MkII or Nikon D2x will not fit, the bag will not close then.
The inner padding is soft but sturdy, and will absolutely protect your gear, I think it would survive quite a lot, I didn’t test it, but you can’t feel your camera through the padding. But, and I think this is a price issue, it doesn’t really feature any weather protection, like the AW series of Lowepro. 110 euro for such a bag isn’t much, and weather protection just doesn’t fit into the price.

Looks

Well, the bag is ugly, damned ugly. My second reason to go back to the store, and get a different bag. First I found out that backpacks slow down my workflow, and as a second reason, the bag is obviously a camera bag, thick, padded, like a fat beetle on your back. Walking through big cities in dark alleys with this bag is not really advisable, it just draws every bodies attention. So, I went back to the shop, and got a different one, the Domke F-2 black, totally different choice, but a lot more satisfying than the Naneu Pro Urban Gear U120.

Pictures