The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it. — Francois de La Rochefoucauld

lowepro flipside 400 review

In photography stuff, random pix on 4 October 2008 tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , with 42 comments

as a pho­to­grapher i know the agony felt by all pho­to­graph­ers when it comes to find­ing a suit­able cam­era bag. i’ve owned 5 cam­era bags over the last 3 years.

the first bag was a lowepro nova mini aw which i out­grew quite quickly. it was a great bag, but it wasn’t big enough for my needs. the second bag was a crumpler 7 mil­lion dol­lar home. i loved that bag, how­ever it was quite uncom­fort­able when laiden with gear. the bag was good around town with a little bit of kit. how­ever over one shoulder (mes­sen­ger bag style) it was quite tir­ing to carry around all day. the third bag was a lowepro sling­shot 200 aw. this bag was the per­fect size (although some­times a squeeze get­ting my gear in) and was a very use­ful bag. i liked the way it was able to slip around under my arm, allow­ing me access to the bag without tak­ing it off. how­ever, because it was a single shoulder bag too, it got uncom­fort­able and heavy dur­ing exten­ded use.

the 4th bag was a com­plete mis­take. i bought a crumpler whickey and cox. while the bag was beau­ti­fully designed, it was just too big for long dis­tance trekking. it was com­fort­able though. my biggest annoy­ance with crumpler was the fact that they insist on try­ing to please the ‘laptop’ crowd by includ­ing a laptop option with their bags. the other annoy­ance was the ridicu­lous amount of pad­ding. it res­ul­ted in less room inside the bag, while being much big­ger out­side. sure, i want to pro­tect my gear, but there needs to be a happy medium between pad­ding and size.

the prob­lem with bags is that they try and do too much. every bag these days has a laptop pocket. pho­to­graph­ers also want spaces for water bottles or blad­ders. so bag makers are try­ing to make bags that do too much.

how­ever, i finally found the right bag … and this bag is going to do plenty of work over the next 18 months as i start my round the world trek. the cri­teria for a bag is that it needs to be smallish (def­in­itely no use­less laptop com­part­ment), but big enough to carry cam­era gear, have some pad­ding, have a tri­pod holder, and prefer­ably be water resistant.

i didn’t think this would be dif­fi­cult, but it turned out to be more dif­fi­cult than i thought. how­ever, after mak­ing the mis­take with the crumpler, i returned to the com­pany i love most; lowepro.

enter the lowepro flip­side 400 aw …

lowepro’s pro­duc­tion photos

i picked up this bag and i’m really glad that i did. the lowepro flip­side 400 aw has everything i need in a bag. actu­ally, when i went to the store, i inten­ded to buy the flip­side 300. i thought the size would be per­fect for my needs. how­ever they also had the 400 ver­sion, which i took a care­ful look at too. i real­ised that the 400 was only slightly big­ger, but was sig­ni­fic­antly bet­ter. also, the 300 doesn’t come with a rain cover. the 400 does, which was a major selling point. i live in korea and i picked up this bag for 100,000 korean won. that’s approx­im­ately US$110. the price was also very good.

there is only one small dif­fer­ence between my bag and the pro­duc­tion pho­tos above; image 3 (loaded bag) shows that the pocket on the bag is some­what see through. mine is not. that pocket cover is def­in­itely not see through at all.

lowepro’s pro­duc­tion photo

the store had 3 col­ours: blue, black and green. i went with the green. the reason for my choice was simply because the green looks less like a cam­era bag. in a few days, i’ll remove the lowepro logo on the front and replace it with an aus­tralian flag patch. i’ll dirty the bag up and cut off some of the unne­ces­sary straps. i want to make the bag look as much like a reg­u­lar back­pack as pos­sible. i know that when i’ve got a tri­pod attached it will be obvi­ous that the bag is full of cam­era gear, how­ever i still want to make the bag as gen­eric as pos­sible. the best thing about this bag is the secur­ity. i’m not sure who did it first (crumpler or lowepro) but both have the zip­per inside the back, mean­ing that the bag can­not be open­ded unless the bag is phys­ic­ally removed from my back and opened. this is a great fea­ture. it means that nobody can steal gear on a crowded street or sub­way. the back still has a pocket for gear, which can be opened, but that can be pro­tec­ted with a small lock.

i got the bag home and took some pho­tos. i real­ised that i can get a hell of a lot into this bag. actu­ally, i got more into this bag than i got into the crumpler. it sur­prised me, but i real­ised that the pad­ding in the crumpler bag was ridicu­lously inhib­it­ing.  lowepro have struck a bet­ter bal­ance between pad­ding and space.

the lowepro bag i bought. from the out­side it has a few very nice fea­tures. the small orange logo at the bot­tom indic­ates the loc­a­tion of the tri­pod holder. the strap in the middle is adjustable. it’s good for hold­ing the tri­pod. there are two straps on the top (left and right sides) which can be adjus­ted to give the bag more depth. this is use­ful to keep the bag nice and tight. there are two pock­ets (one on each side) which are big enough for misc. junk. a water bottle fits in the pock­ets comfortably.

the bag has an all weather cover, which folds in the bot­tom of the bag. how­ever, the all weather cover will not cover the bag when a tri­pod is attached. so if it rains, i’ll have to take off the tri­pod and carry it. i don’t think this is a fault of the bag, because it would simply be too imprac­tical to make the weather cover big enough to go over the tri­pod as well.

the flip­side 400 also has a waist strap which is posi­tioned well. it sits high on my waist (i’m aver­age height, about 172cm) and is very com­fort­able. there’s a chest strap too which is thin and a com­plete waste of time. it’s one of the first things that will be cut off.

inside, this bag is plenty big. the pock­ets and com­part­ments are com­pletely adjustable. after the crumpler bag, i was amazed how much fit into the flip­side 400. without adjust­ing the com­part­ments too much (i removed a couple of par­ti­tions) i man­aged to fit my:

- Nikon D200 (with strap and bat­tery grip)
– Nikkor 18-200mm VR (on cam­era)
– Tokina 11-17mm fisheye
– Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 ultra wide angle (this is a big 77mm dia­meter lens)
– Nikkor 50mm f1.8
– Nikon SB-600 flash
– 7 fil­ter boxes
– Leica R5 and summicron-r 50mm f2 lens
– Spare space at the bottom

that’s a fair amount of gear. even though most lenses are short, there’s a large space in the bot­tom. i could eas­ily get a longer lens in there, or extend the main column in the centre to acco­mod­ate a large tele­photo into the bag (on cam­era). for the moment, i’ve packed the bag so that the space is at the bot­tom, pro­tect­ing the more valu­able gear if the bag is dropped too heav­ily. if i put more gear in the bag, the fil­ters and flash (or the leica, which is a solid metal body) will be moved to the bottom.

i for­got to men­tion, there is also a small pad which can be used in the main com­part­ment. the pad is designed to sit under the cam­era (in lieu of a bat­tery grip) and is held in place with a vel­cro strap. the pad will keep the cam­era sit­ting firmly in the main com­part­ment. it pre­vents the cam­era from mov­ing and bump­ing around when the cam­era is stored in the bag. it’s a nice fea­ture for people who don’t use bat­tery grips. if the lens on the cam­era has a tri­pod col­lar, it will sit nicely.

in the open­ing flap, which sits against my back, there are 3 pock­ets at the top which are designed to hold memory cards. the main sleeve is cur­rently hold­ing my spec­tra dif­fuser. the dif­fuser kit is quite slim, so even though it’s too long for the sleeve, it still sits com­fort­ably on my back with the bag zipped up. i may rearrange that sleeve later, depend­ing on my final arrange­ment when i start traveling.

the com­part­ment on the back is a half flap which opens on a sec­tion full of small pock­ets for car­ry­ing mis­cel­laneous odds and ends. cur­rently i have my lowepro fil­ter case, geo­metr gps device, shut­ter release cable, a few zip­lock bags, water­proof cf card case, bat­ter­ies for the flash, and the bat­tery holder for my camera’s grip (handy dur­ing trav­el­ing). there’s a lot of room in this big com­part­ment and i can prob­ably get a lot more stuff in there. i haven’t packed it too ser­i­ously just yet. there’s one small cute addi­tion, which is a latch for a set of keys or some­thing sim­ilar (vis­ible in photo, top right). although, the elastic and plastic clip aren’t very strong, so i can see it break­ing quite eas­ily if pulled too hard.

the tri­pod shoe is big enough to fit two tri­pod legs and give the tri­pod more sta­bil­ity and secur­ity. the strap at the top is big enough to fit around the entire tri­pod, how­ever i usu­ally run the strap over two legs and under the third leg, to make it more dif­fi­cult for someone to remove the tri­pod without my know­ledge. this tri­pod is a slik pro 330dx. it’s quite a big tri­pod and sits out from the bag’s top and bot­tom a long way. before trav­el­ing i plan to buy a git­zmo car­bon fiber travel tri­pod. it’s a smal­ler build and weighs about 1kg, which will sit on the back very nicely.

the cover sits on the bag nicely and (thank­fully) doesn’t have a big ugly ‘lowepro’ tag on it. there’s a logo, but it’s not too obvi­ous. tech­nic­ally the bag is not water­proof, but with the rain cover on it, and the bag against my back, the bag will stay dry. so the all weather tag is jus­ti­fi­able. this fea­ture is not avail­able on the flip­side 200 or 300 models.

in the wild …

the bag is really com­fort­able and sits high on my back. with gear in it, the weight is not a prob­lem at all. car­ry­ing the bag fully loaded over long dis­tances doesn’t cre­ate any undue back strain or tired­ness. the bag does sit out a little way, but no more than a reg­u­lar back­pack. i think that’s the beauty of this bag, it doesn’t look like a cam­era bag. the waist straps are com­fort­able too, although i don’t strap the bag over short dis­tances. long dis­tances or hik­ing though and the waist straps are very handy.

con­clu­sion …

the lowepro flip­side 400 aw is a great bag. actu­ally, it’s exactly the bag i’ve been look­ing for. i can see this bag stay­ing with me for a while … and come next march, this bag is going to be doing the hard yards dur­ing an 18 month tour of planet earth. the reason i went for the smal­ler bag was that i need to be able to carry the bag on my front when in transit, because my hik­ing pack will go on my back. i think this is a bet­ter bag than the crumplers and the kata bags i looked at in the store did not look like very com­fort­able bags at all (and they were big­ger too).

pros:

- good secur­ity (the bag can’t be opened without tak­ing it off)
– doesn’t scream ‘cam­era bag’, espe­cially thanks to vari­ous col­ours (i like the khaki green)
– no obnox­ious logos to attract unwanted atten­tion
– lots of room and adjustable com­part­ments
– small build
– good strap­ping (waist and shoulder straps)
– numer­ous pock­ets in the back com­part­ment, use­ful for small item stor­age
– all weather cover, which folds away under the bag
– tri­pod holder and adjustable strap
– mul­tipur­pose side pock­ets, good for water and non valu­able items
– nice carry handle on the top
– adjustable body straps on the top left and right sides
– small pad which can be used under the cam­era
– bag is well pad­ded against the wearer’s back

cons:

- use­less chest strap (i don’t know why bag makers insist on installing them)
– non remov­able chest and waist strap (crumpler does allow these to be removed, which is a bet­ter option)
– too many plastic buckles — i’d like to see a few more solid buckles, espe­cially the clip that holds the tri­pod on
– the back com­part­ment has two zip­pers and is eas­ily opened — the main com­part­ment has good secur­ity, so lowepro needs to think up a way to secure the back com­part­ment too

actu­ally, most of my com­plaints are quite small. i have noth­ing that i ser­i­ously dis­like about this bag. and some of the points i like most are related to the bag being secure, unob­trus­ive and small.

over­all, i highly recom­mend this bag. i look for­ward to put­ting the flip­side 400 though its paces more thor­oughly over the next 18 months.

if you read this review, please leave a com­ment. i love get­ting vis­it­ors :)

this review is pos­ted at the fol­low­ing sites:

www.photo.net

www.dpreview.com

www.trekearth.com

www.lightstalkers.org


42 Comments

David, thank you for post­ing the review of the Flipside 400. I think we all struggle with find­ing the right bag, and inform­a­tion such as you have pos­ted is very help­ful. I like that the main com­part­ment unzips from the back. Clever idea! I recently pos­ted a much briefer review of a LowePro Slingshot 200 that can be seen here:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=29267885. Although I also have a LowePro AW back­pack, I chose the Slingshot for vaca­tion travel because of the ease of mov­ing it in front of me, for secur­ity, while mov­ing through crowds.
Best regards,
Robert Burke (“EarthSmiles”)
http://www.pbase.com/earthsmiles

Posted by Robert Burke on 5 October 2008 @ 2am

Great review, I must point out that the Crumpler Whickey and Cox has a remov­able laptop insert, it’s the users option to use it or not.
I was a little cheesed off when LP claimed the rear open­ing cam­era com­part­ment as their innov­a­tion — Crumpler intro­duced this fea­ture as early as 2005 CES! :-)
Competition in bags is def­in­itely good for pho­togs…
Cheers, BBB)))

Posted by Big BAD Benny on 5 October 2008 @ 9am

Thank you for this review. I am also look­ing for a new bag and i think, it will be the Flipeside 400.
It´s more diff­cult to find the per­fect cam­era bag then the per­fect wife;o)

Posted by Andy on 14 December 2008 @ 4pm

Thanks a bunch for tak­ing the time to write up this thor­ough review!
I’ve had the same exper­i­ence with over-the-shoulder bags, plus there never was a good place for the tri­pod. I stumbled upon the Flipside — but then, mar­ket­ing lingo doesn’t tell you what you really need to know… your review did.
Have fun on the RTW-trip!

Regards
Florian

Posted by Florian Hollender on 15 December 2008 @ 1am

David, great review. The 400 doesn’t seem to com­ply to the carry on rules. Is that correct?

Thanks. Rob.

Posted by robert roy on 31 December 2008 @ 5am

hi robert. thanks for your comment.

i prefer not to fly when trav­el­ing, so i have to say that i am not 100% cer­tain of the carry on reg­u­la­tions. how­ever, the lowepro 400 is no lar­ger than a back­pack, which i’ve always been able to carry on. an attached tri­pod may cause prob­lems, but i’d wager that the bag itself will be allowed in over­head stor­age bins.

Posted by David on 31 December 2008 @ 9am

Thanks for the great review. There are really only bits and pieces offered with the oth­ers I’ve read. There really aren’t a lot of bags designed with the female pho­to­grapher in mind. Unfortunate. It is often dif­fi­cult to see if a bags straps would com­fort­ably work for women. This bag may work and all of the images helped.
I won­der if the mesh pouch on the side is big enough for a 1 liter bottle (like a Nalgene)? Or is it more of a Gatorade/regular size?

regards, J

Posted by Jennifer on 3 January 2009 @ 2pm

Great review. I’m curi­ous though. You men­tioned that the hip belt is not remov­able. This would be a nuis­ance to me. I am cur­rently using the Lowepro CompuRover AW and its hip belt was secured on both sides with vel­cro while it was slipped in to the back pack. It took both hands but I was able to pull the vel­cro away from both the front and the back of the belt and wiggle and slide it out. Presto, no hip belt. Is this pos­sible with the Filpside?

Posted by Kevin on 8 January 2009 @ 10am

Thank you very much for you great review.
I want more com­fort bag than mini trek­ker clas­sic.
I will con­sider this one.

Posted by lkunl on 15 January 2009 @ 3pm

Thanks for all the inform­a­tion, it is very use­ful! Could you tell me how heavy the bag itself is please? Im try­ing to find a suit­able bag for my mam­iya rb 67 (pretty heavy cam­era if youre wan­der­ing around the welsh coun­tryside for a length of time!), and Im try­ing to find a bag big enough, but not too heavy that it adds more weight than neces­sary to the load.
many thanks
lucy

Posted by lucy gibson on 24 January 2009 @ 6am

You’ve done an excel­lent job review­ing this bag. You are the reason why I’ll pur­chase this bag, I was look­ing at other Lowepro products but after your review this is the one foe me.
Thank you for your time. Hope you’re hav­ing a great time in your travels
Regards
Oscar

Posted by Oscar Zangroniz on 30 January 2009 @ 12pm

lucy — the bag weighs 1.6kg (3.5 lbs). i got that from lowepro’s site. http://products.lowepro.com/product/Flipside-400-AW,2116,14.htm

actu­ally, i have no prob­lems with the bag itself. the weight of the lenses and gear render the bag’s weight almost irrelevant.

oscar — thanks for the feed­back. i love this bag and i hope you like it too!

thanks for the com­ments everyone …

Posted by David on 30 January 2009 @ 1pm

http://www.davidsmeaton.com — great domain name for blog like this)))

Posted by foo on 4 February 2009 @ 8pm

Thanks David for such a great review ‚you have went a bit fur­ther than the stand­ard review that we get .its great to see the cus­tom­isa­tion you have done giv­ing us an idea of what we can really expect to fit in the bag.
on the strength of this review i have pur­chased one and like your­self intend to put it through its paces well done and best regards from Ireland,
Kim
http://www.doublevision-images.com/

Posted by Kim Shatwell Irishphotographer on 1 March 2009 @ 8pm

Hello David;

Great review, I was between 2 dif­fer­ent brands and mod­els, I think you help me out in the decision.

Thanks;

Posted by Héctor on 17 March 2009 @ 2am

Hi David,

First thanks for the more than excel­lent review, a lot of web­sites should take a look at it and recon­sider their way of review­ing. Clearly this is a true in depth look at the bag.

I’m inter­ested in buy­ing this bag. I know have Lowepro Mini Trekker Classic, but it’s not com­fort­able and big enough. I need some­thing big­ger, where I can trans­port my Canon 300mm F2.8IS lens in (accord­ing to the Lowepro web­site that should fit in this bag). I also want a rain­cover and more com­fort­able shoulder padding.

I’m a bit afraid if I like the flip­side prin­ciple (I like zip­pers in the nor­mal place) also the waist belt is some­thing that I prob­ably not going to use (and it’s not remov­able unfor­tu­nately). I like the way it looks (not typ­ical black like most Lowepro bags) and it seems not too HUGE.
I do use the pock­ets a lot in my cur­rent bag. Do you believe the pock­ets are suf­fi­cient to carry extra stuff (bat­ter­ies, loader, cables, fil­ters, manual, sunglasses, PD70x, etc)?

Thanks for your reply and keep up the good work!

Tim

Posted by Tim on 25 March 2009 @ 1am

Hi David

Thnkyou for your inde­pth review of the Lowerprop 400 bag. I’ve been strug­gling to find a bag that will serve me for a while, and expe­cially one that is prac­tical and will grow with me as my equip­ment grows.

I’ve looked at this bag instore, and after hav­ing made 2 errors already, decided to google the Lowerpro 400. Your review has made up my mind. I’m off to buy it tomorrow.

Colleen
South Africa

Posted by Colleen on 12 April 2009 @ 11pm

Thanks for the review. I checked out the 300 AW and liked it in store, found that a 400 AW exis­ted and looked for a review. Yours has sealed the deal, will be order­ing right after send­ing this! Thanks.

Posted by Tony on 3 May 2009 @ 12pm

thanks for this very inform­at­ive review. i am look­ing for a cam­era back­pack that can be used as carry on lug­gage on a plane as we travel east to west in aus­tralia sev­eral times a year. i want a bag big enough for my cam­era equip­ment as well as other bits and pieces for the trip. i think the lowepro 400 is going to be my choice. i have watched the small promo movie and it says it can be turned around to the front with out tak­ing the bag off, you didn’t men­tion that in your reveiw, so i won­der if that is a good fea­ture or not? i think it would be but it may not be as easy to turn around as they showed on the movie clip. thanks a lot.

Posted by Hayley on 25 May 2009 @ 10pm

Excellent review David! A lot of stuff I didn’t think about or see in other reviews.
Thanks a lot, I’m con­vinced :-)

Posted by Kenny on 4 June 2009 @ 3am

I am head­ing over­seas soon and wanted some­thing smal­ler than my large Crumpler, but some­thing that would take a sim­ilar amount of gear. Read your inform­at­ive review and headed to the cam­era shop to try one out. All my gear from my Crumpler fit­ted (flash had to come out of soft case), in a smal­ler and lighter bag. Bought it. Thanks.

Posted by John Stewart on 11 June 2009 @ 5am

thanks for the review! will get mine in a couple days :)

Posted by Eric on 15 June 2009 @ 6pm

David:

Finally a REAL review that I canuse to make my decision in get­ting a cam­era back­pack. Thanks for the excel­lent review, going to order one NOW that I have all the information…FIRST HAND! Bravo!

Thank you,

Kevin DeRose

Posted by Kevin DeRose on 22 June 2009 @ 1pm

great review! i have only a canon bag which is a free­bie that comes with the eos 450D, as my gear out grown my bag, i need one that is dur­able and com­fort­able to bring my gears around. i have been con­sid­er­ing the 300 and 400 AW, u had me sold on the 400 AW, shall get one this week­end, thanks alot. after look­ing long time for a good review to ensure my decision, i have come the right place.….Good Job!

Posted by ray on 7 July 2009 @ 6pm

I am using flip­side 300 and com­pletely lov­ing it. It comes with one van­ity bag that secures right at the inner top.

My only com­plain is that there isn’t enough separator…i have to make some myself…or maybe, it is an indic­a­tion for me to get a BIGGER bag. :)

Now i am temp­ted to get the 400! Thanks for the review!

Posted by Stupe on 20 July 2009 @ 6pm

nice review sir!
Btw, next week im going order one, but i’m also con­sid­er­ing the com­pu­treker series. It has a laptop com­part­ment but the main open­ing of the bag is sim­ilar to stand­ard bags (unlike with flip­side 400, its in the back for more security)

do you guys find the extra laptop com­part­ment worth it? besides you cant put all your laptop stuffs inside (power sup­ply, mouse, extra bat­tery, etc…) together with all your cam­era stuffs

btw, inm going to use it for trav­el­ing and land­scape phot­graphy. thanks in advance

Posted by taquito on 22 July 2009 @ 3am

hi,
thanks for ur in-depth review.
i am around ur same build and am also con­sid­er­ing this bag too after going through what the dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers have to offer.
thanls a lot.
btw, the 2 straps at the top of your bag, u can use them to hold a jacket or some­thing.
might help to dis­guse the bag a little

Posted by cyliew on 14 August 2009 @ 11am

Hi David,

Just learned that Lowepro has a flip­side back­pack which seems to be a good bal­ance between com­fort­ably car­ry­ing and easy and quick access. The 400 seems to be right size. So I googled it and your review came up first. It is really in-depth review and help­ful. Thanks so much!!
One thing I am curi­ous, if you have a tri­pod attached, say Gitzo 1227, is it still pos­sible to open the bag without put­ting it down?

Posted by yang on 23 August 2009 @ 5am

very inform­at­ive review. and yes, i just ordered the 400AW. thank you :)

Posted by Vinay on 13 September 2009 @ 8pm

Thank you David. I bought one from ebay after read­ing your n-depth review and am really pleased with it.

Posted by yang on 16 September 2009 @ 3pm

I have been using a Lowepro 200 sling­shot for the past two years and liv­ing in the Pacific Northwest really appre­ci­ated it’s “rain­coat” fea­ture. I car­ried two SLR cam­eras in it plus some other gear and finally the main zip­per gave up the unequal struggle!

I was going nuts try­ing to find a replace­ment (don’t want the laptop fea­ture) and the reviews were just not telling me what I needed to know — until yours !

Great job — thank you. I ordered on line from B & H in New York dur­ing yes­ter­days major East Coast snow storm and still they will have it here in Sammamish on Wednesday afternoon.

Your review — B& H ser­vice — what more can be needed .

Thanks again David !

Posted by David on 22 December 2009 @ 6am

“cons:

— use­less chest strap (i don’t know why bag makers insist on installing them)”

While use­less for most people, this comes in handy in a few niche mar­kets. I ride and pho­to­graph BMX, and when rid­ing around town from spot to spot it is very nice to have a waste and chest strap to keep the back­pack securely in place; espe­cially if your jump­ing up curbs and rid­ing over bumpy terrain.

But i had been look­ing at sev­eral dif­fer­ent bags to upgrade from my flip­side 200, and didnt even think of this as an option until i found this page. Great inform­a­tion and it ulti­mately lead me to choos­ing this pack. Great review! Thanks!

Justin

Posted by Justin on 4 January 2010 @ 2pm

I found your review and quickly decided to take back a lowe pro Outback 200 bag I had just picked up. I went and got the Lowe pro flip­side 400 aw. Man I love it. I now have a great every day bag and my com­pu­treker for the days I need all of my gear.

Here is the list of what I got stuffed in the new day bag:

Camera:
• Nikon D90 with Mb-80 Battery Grip

Lenses:
• AF NIKKOR 50mm f/1.8D
• AF NIKKOR 85mm f/1.4D IF
• AF DX Fisheye-NIKKOR 10.5mm f/2.8G ED
• AF-S DX Zoom-NIKKOR 18-70mm f/3.5–4.5G IF-ED
• AF-S VR Zoom-NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4.5–5.6G IF-ED
• Sigma APO 150-500mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM
• Sigma 18-35mm D f3.5–4.5 AF Aspherical
• Sigma 1.4 tele­con­verter
• Sigma 2x teleconverter

Tripod / head:
• FEISOL Tournament Class CT-3342 Carbon fiber tri­pod with Wimberly 2 Gimbal Head

Flash:
• Nikon SB800

Accesories:
Better Beamer flash extender
Pop out reflector
Cleaning kit
Expo Disc white bal­an­cer x2
sev­eral fil­ters
flash diffuser

Man can you ever get alot in the bag. Plus there is room for 2 water bottles on the out­side 2 pockets.

Thanks for your great review. I now have the per­fect day bag.

Darren

Posted by Darren on 5 January 2010 @ 2pm

Great review, exactly what I was look­ing for! Thanks a bunch, you’ve saved me a great deal of time

Posted by BEISBOL on 8 January 2010 @ 9am

For those enquir­ing about the Flipside 400 as a bag for air travel, I have just got back from a trip, and the bag was accep­ted onto the plane as carry-on lug­gage, and fit­ted into the over­head bins with no prob­lem at all. Obviously, a tri­pod was not attached. I was fly­ing with Continental, and dif­fer­ent car­ri­ers have dif­fer­ent restric­tions. However, it is my exper­i­ence that the tight­est size restric­tions are usu­ally presen­ted by the size of the air­port secur­ity x-ray machines, and the Flipside goes through those with no prob­lem at all.

Posted by Robin on 10 January 2010 @ 7am

Hi.

Regarding “- use­less chest strap (i don’t know why bag makers insist on installing them)”, I think I can tell you one reason why they are fit­ted. If you walk (par­tic­u­larly in hilly ter­rain) for ten or twelve hours a day you may find that there is a tend­ency for the shoulder straps to work their way out­wards and, depend­ing on what cloth­ing is being worn, this can cause chaff­ing near the armpit. A small strap to limit how far apart the shoulder straps can move solves this prob­lem. This only tends to be noticed on long hikes and with a heav­ily loaded bag. The strap doesn’t have to be par­tic­u­larly sub­stan­tial to do this job. One extra beni­fit can be that if you walk around with a cam­era round your neck on a strap you can do up the chest strap over the cam­era one and it lim­its the extent to which the cam­era flops around.

Although I have chosen a flip­side 400 for some of my gear, I must say that the flip­side with about 7 kilos feels little more com­fort­able than a Crumpler Zoomiverse with 13 kilos (the waist and chest belts are essen­tial for this to be com­fort­able for many hours of walk­ing). I don’t think I would be as com­fort­able with any bag that I have seen from Lowepro with that weight of kit. Of course every­one is different.

As far as the greater degree of pad­ding is con­cerned, again I think it is horses for courses. The flip­side is only about the same size as a medium Crumpler, but can carry more gear. On the other hand there are times when the extra pad­ding is a lifesaver (or at least an equip­ment saver) and if car­ry­ing a sub­stan­tial value of equip­ment and in places where it can’t eas­ily be replace at short notice then the much higher level of pro­tec­tion is wel­comed (slip back­wards on a moun­tain slope — give me a Crumpler every time).

One thing that I noticed is that the rain cover, whilst it pro­tects the front of the bag very well leaves the zips to the main com­part­ment largely unpro­tec­ted. There is a decent look­ing sewn in flap over the zip, but I am still not sure that it is enough to stop water get­ting in. For that reason I would prob­ably not place the most essen­tial items at the bot­tom of the bag, where some water might accumulate.

All the best.

John

Posted by John H. Maw on 11 January 2010 @ 2am

you should put a photo of the flip­side access when wear­ing the bag. I dis­missed this bag at first glance as I was set on a Lowepro Fastpack 350 — I was chan­ging from AW Trekker purely so I could get to gear without put­ting bag down. I under­stood flip­side to mean reverse open­ing as an anti-theft meas­ure, no idea about the swivel in place and access in from of wearer as I did’t watch the video and lowepro don’t show this in their pho­tos — strange, they’d sell heaps more for people not watch­ing video.

So the 350 was going to be a com­prom­ise no tri­pod, no AW and held less than my old bag — yeh for the Flipside 400 AW — per­fect and I think it will even hold a 10″ net­book in outer pouch.

Posted by Mark on 23 January 2010 @ 4pm

Hi, Read you review and decided to go for the 400 instead of the 300 which I was ini­tially inter­ested in. Thank you for your thor­ough review.
Ken

Posted by Ken on 17 February 2010 @ 9pm

Hi David, very nice review. The in-use pics are espe­cially valuable.

I have to take issue with your view on the sternum strap though! I find them very use­ful even on my 15L daypack, if it’s got any weight in it, to keep the straps at the cor­rect width and to keep the load from sag­ging back. I don’t do it up tightly. A properly-adjusted sternum strap means straps cut into your (well, my) shoulders less and makes the load less tir­ing to carry. If your packs sit just right and the straps don’t creep without one, then I’d say you really lucked out with the fit.

Posted by a chris on 21 February 2010 @ 12am

Very good review. I’ve been con­sid­er­ing this bag, but now I think I’ve made my decision. :) Thanks for tak­ing the time to share this.

Posted by Patrick on 4 March 2010 @ 12pm

Like many hear, I’ve been vacil­lat­ing betw a Crumpler back­pack and the LP Flipside 400. been com­ing to nearly the same con­clu­sions about the advant­ages of 400. Going to get one today online. Thanks. This review hit the spot!

Posted by Ken Fong on 5 March 2010 @ 2am

Following up on my last com­ment, I picked up the FP400 and I am very happy with it. In the main com­part­ment, I have room for my Nikon D300S, 4 lenses (includ­ing a 70–200), speed­light, clean­ing kit, and still room to spare. Also, I find this much more com­fort­able than the Slingshot 200 and it feels “lighter” even though there is more gear inside. I highly recom­mend this bag to any­one who may be con­sid­er­ing it. A+++

Posted by Patrick on 7 March 2010 @ 7pm

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