What I learned from Costa Rica, part 2

When I was preparing for this trip, I was considering to carry my camera gears in my Lowepro Nova 2 AW camera bag. Unfortunately, the bag is simply too small for everything I wanted to carry. I had to resort to a lightweight backpack and used old lint-free sweaters to pad the content of the backpack. It worked well. The backpack has wide shoulder straps so carrying my camera gears around was easy. I got the backpack from the Becel Ride for Heart for raising a certain amount of donations. It was a simple, lightweight backpack. It is not meant for camera gears but because the nylon bag fabric is waterproof (except for the zipper line) I decided to use it for my trip. Thinking back now, I probably should have used something else.

What I need for traveling with my camera gears is a waterproof backpack with flaps covering the zippers. If I carry the backpack on my back, it is possible for some thief to unconspicuously unzipper the bag and remove its contents in some busy foot traffic though. Therefore, it would be necessary to lock the zippers to deter theft. However, locking the zippers means unlocking them before use -- too inconvenient. It would nice if the zippers face your back then. This way, it would be extremely hard for the common thief to unzipper the bag let alone see the zipper.

Is there such a bag out there?

What I learned from Costa Rica

I had in my backpack:

• 1.5kg tripod
• 1.05kg Tokina 80-400mm lens
• 0.585kg D80
• 0.560kg Nikkor 18-200mm
• the 0.350kg speedlight flash
• the vertical battery grip
• the original Nikon battery
• 10 x AA batteries (for the flash)
  
• AA recharger
• camera batter rechargers
• and other miscellaneous camera stuff

I got to use the tripod only once or twice. I brought the tripod along a waterfall trail but had left it behind with my dry boots and clothing in the corner of some rocks as I waded the water barefoot to get closer to the waterfall. I also brought it for the volcano tour but we were in a rush I could not use it properly.

I took the 80-400mm lens out only once to test it from a hotel balcony. I should have brought it to the Arenal volcano trip because there were some lava hot boulders tumbling down the side of the volcano, and because there was a Toucan in the far distance that could only be shot with the 400mm!!

The speedlight was useful. I used it many times. I also went through the camera batteries like running water, but I did not have to resort to the 5xAA backup batteries for the flash unit.

So, my backpack would have been a lot more comfortable (by 2.5kg) if I had left the tripod, the 80-400mm lens, and the extra 5xAA batteries home. For my next trip, should I or should I not bring the tripod, the Tokina lens, and the extra batteries? These three heavy gears tend to fall under the only-if's situations. Only if I had brought the 80-400mm to the volcano ... but I didn't because it was darn heavy and I did not expect to see a Toucan there!