Lowepro ProTactic 450 AW II review

Introduction

Yes, another photographic backpack by Lowepro. It's my second backpack by this company, plus another sling-bag that I don't use so much because it's quite uncomfortable. I was looking for a smaller backpack than the Lowepro Flipside 20L AW, that is really good, even though sometimes it's too heavy on the shoulders when is overloaded, because it hasn't the possibility to adjust the position of the shoulder straps. This backpack too hasn't this feature, but being more rigid it stays on the shoulders and on the back better than the other. So let's go to read about this Lowepro ProTactic 450 AW II review!!!

Modularity

The key of this backpack is the modularity. How you can see in these photos, I've added some extra small bag for containing different accessories, like a filter holder, a second camera body or a tripod holder. The material used by Lowepro for this backpack is really strong, so I think it'll be really durable for many years.

And inside, of course, it isn't different and you can adjust, as you want, every space to fit your equipment.

In my case I've left the bottom for the Sony 100-400GM mounted on the Sony A9, while the top part is for the Sony A7RII with the Zeiss Batis 18mm.

Then the other room is for an extra lens (Sony Zeiss 55mm f/1.8), the 1,4x teleconverter, the drone (Mavic Mini 2) with its remote control and batteries, spare batteries, cables, and other stuff.

Always in the external part of the backpack there are two pockets, one in the left side and one in the right side, where to put some small accessory, like a remote control or keys, or whatever you want.

With the bag there are two extra strings for a tripod, but I prefer to buy two others in order to carry on some other stuff, like a sweater or a jacket.

At the bottom of the bag there's a pocket for the raincover, even though there's a problem in my opinion, but I'll tell you later.

In the field

Ok, on the shoulders it isn't so light when you are carrying on everything, but it's pretty confortable and if you adjust properly the shoulder and the belt straps, the bag becomes confortable. I used for many days going around in forests and cities and I didn't have many issues. As all backpack you'll sweat the back, but it's normal. The main feature of this bag is its main front door from which take the camera. Keeping the backpack tied up on the waist, it's easy to remove the shoulder straps from the shoulders, rotate the backpack and take the camera once opened the front panel door. I really appreciated that feature in many situation, mostly when I wanted to have the hands free and use the camera only when I needed.

Walking in nature with this backpack is always confortable, and having some extra pockets in the belt is useful. For example I put the water pouch, with a small bottle of water ready to use. So, is it everything ok? No so much. As I said before I got a small issue with the raincover, because it doesn't cover the whole backpack when you put some extra accessory, like mine, so in that case it's better to buy a new bigger raincover, in order to protect every accessory and the bag as well.

Conclusion

To summarize, the backpack in well done, pretty confortable, despite you can't adjust the length of the shoulders straps, infact you need to close every strap in order to balance the weight of the bag in your body, and only in that way you'll be able to walk for long time. There are some pros and cons:

Pros

• really customizable
• sturdy materials
• flexible in use
• there are a lot of pockets
• pretty confortable

Cons

• a bit heavy
• small raincover
• non-adjustable shoulder straps

To end, speaking about the price it isn't a cheap bag, maybe there are in the market cheaper bags, but I don't know if they have the same quality. So if you can find it with some discount, it worths the price.

I've also made a short video review that you can see below.