A Week as an Adventure Photographer

As an adventure photographer, you don’t have the luxury of a studio where you can keep all your gear in one place and move the subject to you. You are constantly traveling to locations and your gear has to come with you. The LowePro PhotoSport III is an adventure photographer's camera bag. It was designed on the crux of adventure to be a climbing photography specialist. It meets this role and naturally fits your needs for any adventure through its internal adjustable camera support frame which can be quickly removed as a piece called the camera insert. You’ll quickly see how a week might look and the features of the PhotoSport III that will lead you toward success in your photography career. 

On Monday, you set off on a solo scouting mission. You pack light, since you’ll only be gone for the day. You don’t need a lot of gear and you’ll save energy by taking the bare minimum, so you choose your LowePro PhotoSport III 15L pack. Despite the shortness of the day, you still need to be prepared with a spare layer or two, a first aid kit, and a reservoir of water, so in the pack they go. The spare layer in the exterior pocket, the first aid kit into the bottom of the main pull-string pocket, and the reservoir into its designated hydration pocket with the hose coming out its special opening. Your camera kit is condensed for this trip. You bring a smaller, mirrorless camera and two zoom lenses just to get an idea of what focal lengths will work best in the landscape.  Using the flexibility of the PhotoSport III you format the camera insert section of the pack by adjusting the padding, which as a bonus gives better support to your camera. After getting everything adjusted just the way you like it, you find there’s more room in the pack for trail snacks.  

Tuesday you have a scheduled shoot for an elopement wedding. Your planned kit includes two camera bodies, three prime lenses, a set of three lights, a tripod, and light reflectors. You need a bit more gear for this shoot, so you choose to use your 24L version of the LowePro PhotoSport III pack. The destination isn’t far from the road but there is a bit of a climb to get to the location the couple has picked out. You decide to leave the water reservoir in your pack for convenience. Adjusting the interior separators and padding of the insert for the camera bodies and lenses always comes first. Having completed this, you decide you need a little extra space. Since you can remove the camera insert from the pack and attach it to the belt loops on the waist strap of the pack, you can create room inside the pack where the insert was for your second camera body and a lens, protected by the adjustable padding. The tripod goes on the outside of the pack in its purpose-designed restrainers, a pocket at the bottom for the base of the legs (which can also be used for a water bottle) and a restraining strap near the top of the pack. The main pull string pocket has just enough space for all your other gear and before you know it, you’re packed and off in time for golden hour. 

You didn’t have any plans for Wednesday, but that changed when a friend from out of town called. They said they were visiting but their plans fell through, and they want to go pedal some dirt trails for the day. As it happens, you are free. Because you don’t get to go mountain biking very often and this friend enjoys posing for photos with you, so you grab your camera. For this adventure the 15L PhotoSport III pack is just the ticket because you like how snugly it stays on your back. You can pack your camera, bike repair kit, water, and snacks in it and cinch it down using the adjustable waist and chest straps, so the packs contents don’t shift on even the most aggressive berms. You stop to wonder if the pack will be breathable enough to be comfortable. You take it back off and inspect the texture of the back of the pack to see how it’s designed to promote air flow. Satisfied, you pack your mini drone that you can set to follow the two of you down the trail for some fun social media posts later and set off. 

Thursday you have an appointment to take some photos for a local travel company. They want to shoot at the airport, so you’ll need to go through security to get there. As you approach the turnstile, the TSA agent tells you you’ll need to remove any computer equipment from inside your bags and send it through the scanner by itself. You groan to yourself, remembering countless similar experiences where you had to dig to the bottom of your bag to remove your camera cube. You unzip the side of your PhotoSport III and remove the camera insert from the pack and send it through the scanner next to the pack. As it comes out the other side, you hesitate. Was it really that easy? You slide the camera insert back into its slot on the pack and you’re on your way just as fast as you can get your laces tied. 

Friday is the big day. You’re packing to leave on the shoot you scouted for on Monday. The plan is to stay there for a few days, you’ll be shooting lots of scenes including camping, and climbing. You check the weather; it’s supposed to be cloudy with a 40% chance of rain. You make sure to pack water-proofing items like your tent’s rain fly, the All-Weather Cover for your LowePro PhotoSport III camera bag, and the weather cover for your 60L backpacking pack. You pack your camera in the PhotoSport III’s removable camera insert. You don’t pack anything in the PhotoSport III right now, collapsing it down so it fits in the big pack, taking up as little space as possible. When the big bag is packed you can attach the photo insert a few different ways. You can use the belt loops to attach it to the waist strap of the big pack or you can use the buckles to strap the camera insert near your chest.  

Once you’ve set up base camp, it’s time to start hiking to the first location. Packing your camera is simple enough, you place the camera insert back in the PhotoSport III and fill the pack with the rest of the gear that you need. You glance at your trekking poles and decide to bring them just in case. They’re carbon and won’t slow you down too bad and they might be nice on the downhill. Since you don’t need them at the start, you place them in the loops and restraints the PhotoSport III has designed for this exact purpose and you’re off on your adventure. Your job on this shoot is to hike to the top of a climb where you can set up an anchor for yourself and rappel down to the area you’ll be taking photos from. As you reach the top, you tighten your camera bag closer to your shoulders. You’re always afraid of dropping the camera, but what also scares you is the bag shifting and swinging into the rock face, damaging the lens or body. You bought this adventure camera bag because you thought you could better protect your camera with it. This will be the first time you really test the pack. As you rappel, you’re very aware of what the pack feels like on your back. You don’t notice it restricting your movements at all. You’re rappelling a little bit faster due to the extra weight you’re carrying, but you can’t detect a deficit in your balance. You shift your focus to the shoot and hardly think about the pack until you get back to base camp. 

While at camp, your attention turns to a small green tag at the top of the pack, the tag shows a green bar that reaches somewhere close to 75% of the way across the pack. The bar means that LowePro has recycled, re-used, up cycled or found some other way to create this bag using sustainable methods. When you bought the pack, you found this interesting but quickly shifted your attention to the other features of the pack. Now, sitting where you are surrounded by all of your favorite parts of the outdoors, this little green bar tugs at your heart knowing that the people who worked on this bag wanted to protect these amazing places.  

LowePro was born as a climbing camera bag manufacturer. The first LowePro bag ever was designed specifically for what adventure photographers have to do all the time and now the PhotoSport III has grown with the profession and all the new gadgets you love to bring with you on photoshoots near and far. This pack gives you the flexibility to turn it into the pack you need it to be in any environment and at a moment's notice. You face a lot of challenges as an adventure photographer. How do you get the right light when you’re relying so much on the sun? How can you do your part to keep these places wild? The PhotoSport III is there to help you with these challenges. Carry your camera and the tools you need to harness the light. Know you’re helping keep nature wild by supporting eco-friendly design and manufacturing. Choose the LowePro PhotoSport III as your adventure camera bag. 

Featured Products