Pelican 1560 bag review
This is the second bag review that I have written on my website, the first being the ONA Brixton leather camera bag. In that review, I mentioned that the ONA Brixton was the best personal camera bag I have ever used. Well, in today’s review, I will introduce you to the best camera bag a working photographer can ever have.
The gear that I used for 2015
My gear from 2013: I carried a lot of stuff with me that year, and it nearly broke my back. I am a strong guy and I work out in the gym almost every single day, but carrying a camera bag weighing over 20 kg on your shoulder all day is horrible. I had back pains almost every single night after a shoot. I had to find a solution to this problem, so I decided to switch bags over to the Pelican case.
I will start and ruin this review right at the beginning by saying that if you are a working photographer carrying a lot of gear, this is the single best investment you can make for your career. A good camera bag is vitally important if you wish to have a long career, and this camera bag absolutely rocks. I have been using this bag for nearly a year and a half now, and I have no regrets buying it. In fact, I can say that this bag has saved my back and was worth every cent I paid for it.
My bag fully packed for the start of the music season in China for 2016. This will be my basic setup for most shows. The only thing I will put in the bag before I leave is my Microsoft Surface Pro tablet that I use for editing at the shows. But that gets packed loose on top of the equipment.
Now I will say this: I used some large shoulder bags in the past to carry all my gear, and it was killing my back during a 3- or 5-day festival. So one of the reasons I bought this bag was for the roller and the wheels. I had heard that this bag is waterproof and really tough, so I took a chance on it because shooting festivals can easily destroy your equipment. Most bags last me only one season of shooting, and by the end of the season, the bag is normally destroyed.
The top insert in the Pelican case is mostly used to carry smaller items like audio recorders, flash triggers, memory cards, etc. It’s a very useful part of my bag and helps keep everything nicely organized.
I bought the Pelican case with the two inserts for the bag, not the pluck foam. I am pretty sure I don’t have the patience to pluck the foam into the right shapes, and I am sure I would destroy that foam when packing up in a rush at the end of a shoot. But the two inserts are well made and very useful to me.
The bottom insert is what keeps all my gear nice and safe. Like most camera bags, the bottom inserts can be changed to suit your needs. I usually modify it each year as I change my shooting gear. The insert foam is thick and provides more than enough protection for my gear.
Now, let’s start with the positives of this bag. It is marketed as a tough, waterproof bag made out of Ultra-High Impact Co-polymer, which should protect your gear in almost all situations, including water, air, dust, as well as being chemical resistant and corrosion proof. The bag has an o-ring around the lip to help protect it from water and a built-in Pressure Equalization Valve to protect your gear when flying.
The o-ring and Pressure Equalization Valve keep your bag completely safe from all environments. I love how this bag gives me complete confidence when shooting in terrible weather. I know that no matter what happens, my gear in the bag is completely safe from the elements.
You seriously could not ask for anything more from a bag. After using this bag for over one and a half years now, I can say that it is tough as nails. I have used this bag as a chair when sitting backstage at festivals, I have stood on it when shooting to get some more reach, and I have used it in rain and mud. It has protected my equipment perfectly. This case is built like a tank, and I have complete faith in its ability to protect my gear.
This is a photo I took to post on one of my Chinese social media accounts after finishing a really muddy and dirty festival. My bag was completely covered in mud. It was so dirty that I didn’t want to open it inside my apartment to take my gear out before cleaning it, so I put the bag in the shower and rinsed it down before opening it to get my memory cards out.
The bag has a lot of handles for you to carry it around, but it can be really heavy if you fully load it up with gear or even without gear. The bag weighs about 20 lbs or 9.1 kg, so it is not a light bag, but it is built like a tank. My girlfriend can barely carry the bag when it is empty, so if you are a female photographer, just keep that in mind. It is a great bag, but it weighs a ton. When you load the bag up with gear, it is almost unbearably heavy. My bag weighs nearly 30 kg when fully loaded. Both the handles on the bag are extremely strong and durable, and each handle includes a thick metal pin to add more strength to the bag. I never felt like the bag would break or fall apart when carrying it by the handles. But I did not buy this bag to carry it around.
One of the benefits of using the Pelican case is that it just screams professionalism to non-photographers. Even security staff at the events I work seem to treat me a little differently now that I am using this bag.
The handles on this bag are extremely thick and strong and have steel pins reinforcing them. These handles will never break off.
I did not buy this bag to carry around; I bought this bag for the built-in wheels and pulling handle. I have dragged this bag around airports, pavements, and on the grass at festivals. It is so much easier pulling a heavy bag around than carrying it all over the place.
The wheels on the bag are good. They often get clogged up with mud in some dirty locations, but I just clean them out with water, and the wheels keep working beautifully.
The wheels on the bag can take a serious beating, and they keep working. I have used this bag twice a week for the last year and a half, and they still work perfectly.
When I first got the bag, I was worried that the pulling handle would be too weak to pull the bag if it was fully loaded because the handle is basically a large sheet of plastic that runs down the back of the bag. However, after one and a half years of use, I have no more worries about it. It keeps working beautifully.
My first impression of the trolley handle (not sure what to call the handle that extends from the back of the bag) was that I didn’t think it was going to last. Well, I was absolutely wrong. After a lot of abuse and use, the handle still works perfectly. That thick sheet of plastic it is made from seems to be incredibly strong.
There is no doubt that this bag is seriously well-made and can take all kinds of abuse that you throw at it.
Now let’s look at some of the downsides to this bag, and I will warn you, there are not many. The first is the weight of the bag, which is not a problem for me except when flying. The weight quickly adds up with this bag when flying, but you have to protect your gear. Many marketing materials advertise that this bag is suitable for carrying on a plane, but it is too big to be used as a carry-on in most parts of the world. If you are going to Europe, Asia, Australia, or Africa, then this bag will absolutely have to be checked, and they are going to weigh it. It is very easy to break the weight restrictions for most airlines with this bag.
I have flown a lot with this bag. No airline has ever let me take this bag onto the plane as a carry-on. It is just too big.
Now, this bag can take an absolute beating at airports, but one negative aspect I have experienced is security. The bag comes with two slots on the lip to lock the bag, and I always lock it when I fly. However, most people at airports know that these bags are used to carry expensive equipment. On several instances, I have found that the locks on my bag have taken a beating from someone trying to break in. But this is not the bag’s fault; you can’t blame it for the fact that people carry expensive gear in it, and others may want to steal that gear. The last problem I have with the bag is closing it. The bag comes with an o-ring to keep it air and water tight, but that means you have to line up the lids perfectly to close it. If the o-ring is not lined up perfectly, then the latches will not lock into place. So sometimes, it is hard to pack this bag up in a rush.
I love this bag; it is perfect for a working photographer. It gives you just the right amount of space and protection you need to feel confident, so you don’t have to worry about your gear while you are working. The bag is a little expensive here in Asia, but the peace of mind it brings is worth more than any price a retailer would ask for it. I have strongly recommended this bag to other photographers here in China, and I strongly recommend it to you, the reader. If you carry a lot of gear, or if you are worried about your gear while working and traveling, buy this bag. Don’t waste time looking for alternatives—just buy this bag. I seldom recommend gear this strongly, but as a work bag, it is unbeatable by any other bag on the market right now.
Shaun.