So I purchased this new Peak Design 5L Sling a few weeks ago as an everyday carry bag for myself since I usually only take my camera and a few other small things with me day to day. Forewarning, this is not a bag that will carry everything you own. This is a “I want to go out and shoot and only take my mirrorless camera and an extra lens or two then go home,” kind of bag. It’s made for drones and mirrorless camera kits. If you’ve got an SLR, this isn’t gonna cut it. I used this bag as my only camera bag for a 3 day trip to Miami and fit everything I needed in it (snugly). The contents can be seen in the attached photos. I would equate the size of this bag to a ONA Bowery or Domke F5X in terms of interior dimensions. If you’ve never tried a sling bag and have always used shoulder bags like me then you might want to give it a try. I think it works better than the ONA/Domke bags mentioned above for this small amount of gear.
First off, the design. I will be the first to admit I was never a fan of the tech-bro looking color ways that Peak Design had but I saw this all black color way on Twitter one day and was immediately attracted to it. I saw that they are doing all their bags with this new look and it makes my wallet hurt just thinking about it. I’ve never owned a sling bag before and wasn’t sure how I was going to like it but it turns out I *really* like it. I like that it sits right against my back and it keeps my profile nice and slim where with a shoulder bag it sticks out a fair amount even with the small amount of gear I carry. I like that I can just rotate it around my body and all my stuff is right there with easy access and I can slide it back around when I’m done. Something I feel like a lot of bags lack is a properly placed top handle too. The Peak Design sling has it placed on top where it doesn’t let the contents all fall out if you have it open when you grab the top handle. The materials all feel great. There’s not any stitching coming out anywhere so it looks like QC is doing their job (at least they did on the bag I bought). For me, a bag that is waterproof is key and the material they use is a nylon-canvas material with DWR in it and weather proof zippers so it should hold up in the rain really well short of a monsoon. I haven’t had it out in the rain too much since I don’t live in NYC anymore but so far it’s held up great. I like that the materials feel really tough too. I feel like they’ll hold up well over time. I like the way the soft interior liners feel as well. I’m not sure if they’ll break or bust yet but for now they feel soft to the touch and kind of stretchy so they have a little give which is nice. So the Peak Design specific features that I’ve used seem to work really well so far. I don’t own any of their other equipment so I can’t talk about how well the capture clips and stuff work with the bag but I can tell you that the adjustable sliding strap feature works well as well as the folding dividers. I like that I can easily stack stuff and fold the dividers between the items. It works really well for small M lenses or Fuji X lenses. I don’t care that stuff touches each other but what I don’t like is when there’s too much space around the lenses so they bounce all over the place inside the bag so those folding dividers keep things from moving around too much. Some other cool things that I liked were the adjustable straps have a spot that the slack can fold into so the ends are floating around all over the place and that the strap has a spot where it can easily unhook if you don’t want to sling it over your head to take it off. Oh, and the two front zipper pulls can hook together so no one can run up behind you and unzip the bag in a hurry and take whatever they want on the inside. Now for the downsides. The tablet pocket feels worthless. I don’t know how you’d fit a tablet in there comfortably if you had anything more than an X100 size camera in the main pocket. It’s a good idea but I think if Peak Design really intended you to put a tablet in there they should have made the bag *slightly* larger. The front pocket is also more or less worthless unless you’re just stashing paper or hotel room keys away. With a full bag it was tough to get stuff in and out of it. Overall, this is a great day bag for just going out and shooting with a mirrorless camera kit. I definitely feel like this is a great secondary bag to have on a trip where you have a main bag that has all your photo gear in it like the Peak Design 20/30L Everyday Backpack. I plan on trying to get my hands on a 20L backpack in black soon if I can afford it. I can definitely see the appeal of the Peak Design system now that I’ve tried some of it (I also got their Field Pouch). If I shot with DSLR equipment I could see myself maybe investing in their straps or capture clips but I don’t so I’ll probably just stick to their bags. Good job Peak Design, I’m a fan.