Hi everyone,

Apologies to the late and great James Brown, I couldn’t resist it 🙂 . For my next trip I was looking for another small, lightweight bag with an extra bit of storage when compared to my older Manfrotto bags. I like the Manfrotto bags as they’re lightweight, compact, well designed, well padded and rugged. Another good thing about their bags is that they do a mind-boggling range which seems to be continually changing so one can pickup their previous generation designs at a fraction of their original price, I paid £19.99 UK for my new bag. The model number is Manfrotto Compact 1 Advanced Shoulder Bag for CSC – Black (MB MA-SB-C1). Outer dimensions – ‎26 W x 12 D x 18 H centimetres. weight – 0.54 Kilograms according to manufacturer’s specifications. Important to note that the 18cm height includes the top compartment. I’m happy to say that, unlike one of my other Manfrotto bags, they have included a rain cover that doesn’t require having to detach the bag strap to fit/remove it every time one wants to use it, nice touch! as everything can get very wet very quickly whilst faffing around detaching the strap, threading the cover through and re-attaching it if one’s caught out in a sudden heavy downpour as has happened to me on occasions. I also noted that the bag’s fabric is smooth and not coarse like my older bags so water should run off it and it should be fine in all but heavy rain.

Here’s a few pictures, the first a size comparison with one of my older, smaller bags, a shot of the back of the new bag and, lastly, a shot of the bag’s main compartment. It has a top zipped compartment in which I’m stowing two rain covers, the one supplied with the bag and another for my camera with enough room left for my mobile phone and case. The main compartment comes with two dividers and I’ve packed my OM-D E-M5 MK II camera with Lumix 12-60mm f/3.5-f/5.6 zoom lens and hood fitted on its side, my Lumix 20mm f/1.7 lens and hood. two JJC battery/SDHC card boxes, each of which contains one spare camera battery and two SDHC cards and lastly one of my dual USB camera battery chargers and one of my Anker 6700 mAh USB power banks. There are also two small velcro-fastening pockets in which I put a microfibre cloth, several Zeiss lens wipe sachets, an extra filter and USB charge cable. Lastly as shown in the shot of the back of the bag, there’s one additional shallow zip-up pocket big enough to store my very small table top tripod and a lens pen. All the zip pockets open from the back so, when the bag is hanging from one’s shoulder or crossbody, (my preferred method as it’s less easy to snatch), they’re against one’s body, a nice feature to help prevent pickpockets gaining access to the bag contents, the main compartment opens outwards away from one’s body. The supplied shoulder strap has a nicely padded shoulder pad and not the rigid plastic/rubber type which cuts into one’s neck when wearing lightweight summer clothing and I like having a grab handle on the bag. I always like to try and accommodate a USB camera battery charging solution in addition to the charging gear I pack in my hold-luggage as, if the latter goes walkabout, I can still charge camera batteries or my mobile phone at least for a while and also as a backup camera battery charger should the other one fail or get damaged.

All-in-all another nicely designed Manfrotto bag that accommodates all the gear that I want/am restricted to having to take with me as hand luggage eg. rechargeable batteries and still small enough to fit under the seat on an aircraft. Also worth noting that, if you register your purchase online it comes with a 60 months warranty. Whether it’ll be my go-to travel bag in five years time only time will tell but for now, it ticks all the boxes.

Kind regards

Leigh