I recently picked up a new camera bag, the Mindshift Backlight 26L Backpack by ThinkTank and I wanted to share a few words about it.  The last few years, I’ve been a pretty good boy, not renewing my subscription in the “bag of the month” club.  I joke, but as you might know by your own experience, it’s easy to buy too many camera bags.  I will admit that right now I have 4 camera packs.  Two of them are occupied at all times, one with my GFX system and one with my XT system.  Still, I have two others that now sit unoccupied waiting for the perfect use case.

My day-to-day pack is my trusty original Gura Gear pack.  It swallows a ton of gear and accessories and does everything I want and need in an everyday pack.  So, why did I need a new pack you might be asking yourself?  Well, I’ll tell ya.  As good as the Gura is, there are a couple of things that sometimes make it not the best pack for a particular photo trip.  The two biggest issues I have with my Gura are that it doesn’t have a laptop sleeve or area designated for paperwork/office kinds of stuff.  When I drive to workshops, I bring a separate briefcase to handle my office stuff.  However, when I have to fly away to workshops, I often don’t want to take a briefcase and having an area in my pack devoted to computers/papers would be a very welcome thing to have.  Secondly, some of the workshops I lead are in remote locations and to get there, we have to fly on small airplanes and there can be some severe weight restrictions on these small planes.  Last year I travelled to Greenland and the carryon limit was 23lbs…all my camera gear plus my pack!  When I weighed my Gura empty, I believe it was about 5-6lbs!   I frantically searched for a lighter pack before the trip, however I couldn’t get one in time so I adjusted my gear and made the weight limit.

One of the packs I had my eye on for the Greenland trip was the Mindshift Backlight 26L pack.  I own the 36L size and use that one for longer international trips, taking most of my gear plus my drone.  It does a fantastic job, though it is a bit large for smaller overhead compartments on airplanes.  I knew the larger one wouldn’t work for Greenland and is often much larger than I need for most domestic workshops, so I set my sights on the smaller version, the 26L pack, thinking this could be the one to fit my needs with a dedicated computer/office compartment as well as being lighter than my Gura for traveling.

A couple of months ago I found a great deal on the Mindshift Backlight 26L in the color I wanted to I snapped it up.  I had an upcoming trip to Monument Valley which I had to fly to, so I thought this could be a good “reason” (excuse) to buy the bag.  When it arrived I was happy with my purchase and excited to give it a try.  My schedule varied so much that I didn’t get to take it out in the field before my MV workshop, so I went against the common advice to never take untested gear in to the field for an important outing, and packed the bag with all of my gear and readied for the trip.  I figured it was a low-risk situation taking an untested pack, versus a more technical piece of equipment, yet I still had questions of how it would perform on the trip.  It’s been two weeks now since I returned from Monument Valley and I wanted to give you a few of my impressions of this pack in case you might be looking for a new camera bag.

Initial Impressions

  • Extremely well constructed.  The materials, zippers, stitching are fantastic and very high quality.  It felt like a high-end bag and based years of experience with bags, it looks like it will last for a long, long time.
  • Lightweight – Weighing only 3.5lbs empty, it is much lighter than my Gura when empty.  When carrying a fully loaded pack, every ounce counts and this is one of the lightest packs I’ve carried.
  • Very Supportive – The padded shoulder straps and waist belt have great initial comfort as well as extended comfort when wearing for a long period of time.

What I Liked

  • Dedicated computer/office area in the front of the pack.  It fit my MacBook Pro and notebooks, pens, cards, etc. and protected it nicely.
  • Fit all of the camera gear I needed to bring!  I traveled with 2 bodies, 4 lenses (12mm-400mm), tele-extender.
  • Alot of room for accessories such as blowers/cleaning supplies, headlamp, small tools, medical supplies, etc
  • Dedicated tripod carrying system
  • Water bottle holders on the side
  • Integrated rain cover
  • Small pockets and clips to keep track of small, or important things such as car keys!
  • Back Opening pack – On my Gura, I have to set the pack down on the shoulder straps, getting them muddy or wet on the ground, in order to access the camera gear compartment.  On the Mindshift Backlight 26L, you set the pack down on its “face” with the straps off the ground, to access the back of the pack to get your camera gear.  It kept my harness system as clean as possible in the dusty environment, which minimized the amount of grime on me.  Plus, with the straps pointing upwards, I found it easier to grab and lift the pack off the ground, versus the Gura which I have to stand up before I can grab a shoulder strap.

There are many, many more features to this pack but as you can see from the list above, I wanted to highlight a few of the features that I found particularly helpful on my first big trip with the pack.   Of course, nothing is perfect and so I feel obliged to offer a few insights to a couple of things that weren’t my favorite features of the pack.

Not My Favorite

  • The depth of the gear compartment is not as deep as what I’m used to on the Gura.  One of the ways they keep the low profile of this pack is to not have a lot of “extra” height in the gear compartment.  I am used to my Fujifilm X-T5 fitting comfortably in its slot in the Gura with some headroom between the camera and the top of the pack.  With the Mindshift, even my diminutive X-T5 filled the height to the brim with no extra space above the camera.  Now a caveat to this….I put my camera on its side, grip facing upwards so it is easy to lift my camera out of the bag.  In the marketing materials for backpacks, you will see the cameras positioned resting on their bases, offering a reduced height.  So, my choice to put my camera the way I do, however, it was still a bit more snug that I would have preferred.  Not a show stopper at all!   For those of you with larger DSLRs, you might think about this if you are considering this pack.  The 36L size is a bit deeper, but also taller and bulkier.
  • No removable waist belt.  The waist belt on the pack is nicely padded and it does a great job supporting the load across the hips.  This is great for extended walking or hiking with a loaded pack! When I wear it, it is one of the best waist belts I’ve used.  However, it is a rare occasion when I actually need the benefit of a waist belt.  I do not do a lot of hiking with my camera and any extended walks I take, the shoulder straps are more than sufficient to carry the load.  When not use, the waist belt can flop around, snag on things and generally get in the way if you aren’t paying attention.  This is not an uncommon feature…many packs have fixed waist belts!  It’s just part of making a backpack and one that is designed to carry 20-40lbs of gear.  However, I still wish there was a way for me to remove the waist belt and store it when I don’t need it.  On my Gura, the waist belt is un-padded 2″ nylon webbing…not very supportive, but it does help. The cool thing with this is that you can tuck it in to a pocket on the back of the pack when you don’t need it.

So the big questions is….was the pack “worth it” to me and will I keep it?  YES!  This is a fantastic pack and one that I plan on keeping for a long time.  It fulfills all of my needs and wants and does it in a superbly built, easily managed package.  Yes, there are a few niggles that I wish were slightly different, but those are small issues compared to all of the positives of this pack.  I will keep using my Gura for a bit too because I’m most used to it and it works for all of my driving trips.  I would not be surprised though if I decided to sell my Gura in the future and stay completely with my Mindshift 26L Backpack, and 36L Backpack for longer trips.