Hi everyone,

I promised that I’d report back. I am very happy with my new Manfrotto Compact 1 Advanced Shoulder Bag for CSC camera bag which I took to Corfu. Size-wise and weight-wise it’s absolutely perfect for my needs and is a great fit under the seat on flights out of the way of anyone kicking it. I prefer this to using the overhead lockers as folks are pretty ruthless and often inconsiderate when cramming their bags, cases, clothing, duty free and holiday souvenirs etc. into the lockers and there’s always the possibility of some clumsy “person” causing my bag to fall out. It did rain lightly on a couple of occasions but not heavily enough to resort to fitting the bag’s rain cover and the bag contents stayed perfectly dry.

To give an idea of the capacity of the bag I managed to accommodate the following items comfortably:

1. E-M5 mk II camera with Lumix 12-60mm lens and hood attached.
2. Lumix 12-32mm lens and hood.
3. Lumix 14mm lens and hood.
4. Anker 6700 mAh USB power bank in a drawstring bag.
5. Spare USB camera battery charger.
6. USB charge cable for above or my mobile phone.
7. CPL filter and pouch.
8. Several Zeiss lens wipe sachets.
9. Microfibre lens cloth.
10. Small lipstick-sized Matin lens brush.
11. 4x 18650 batteries in rubber (short-proof) cases.
12. 2 extra camera batteries in latching waterproof/short-proof cases.
13. Rain poncho.
14. Camera rain cover (which happily along with my other wet weather gear I didn’t need to use this time) 🙂
15. Bag rain cover.
16. Small 4x SDHC card case.

Note: I mentioned “short-proof” a couple of times because, with good reason, airlines and airport security really don’t like batteries particularly high capacity rechargeable batteries rattling around loosely in one’s cabin bag without taking adequate measures to prevent them from shorting on something the consequences of which being potentially pretty dangerous (read getting very hot and catching fire) especially so in a confined aircraft cabin, even a bit of tape securely attatched over the battery contacts will suffice. Also take a moment to familiarise yourself with the latest regulations regarding the type of battery (eg. lithium-ion, lithium-polymer etc.), battery capacity (mAh) and per-type quantity of rechargeable batteries permitted in cabin luggage. Likewise, air-travel or not, it’s obviously always a good idea to take measures to prevent them from getting wet. Always make sure that you have a charged battery in your camera when passing through airport security as, if stopped, you’ll need to be able to demonstrate that it works and isn’t concealing something. The above can save you a lot of hassle and make life easier for yourself and safer for everyone.

Kind regards

Leigh