Kata 123-GO-30 Sling Backpack

Yes i'll probably get burned at the stake but let me explain.

As my collection of kit increased i started to outgrow my original Lowepro 160 (1/2 lens), then a Lowepro Nova (3/4 lens size). I needed more space, something more comfortable for a full day shoot (e.g. a day out round the zoo with my kids), configurable and possibly expand to suit even more kit. Because my budget was a factor i thought i'd researched products very well before choosing to part with hard earned money. The bag generally got a lot of great things said about it but it just isn't very good, it's not even good although does have some good points.

The good:
Seems well constructed
Solid feel to it

The bad:
Just about everything else

When i first got the bag i thought wow, it's great, it's big, seems very well made, appears to have lots of room inside, even the top portion had more space than i thought it would, result... Not so once you start to consider how you're going to use it, how your kit fits in, how safe things are going in be in there, what it's going to be like when you venture off taking photos and it's rattling about on your back.

So my reasons for such a negative review are:

The straps.
The straps themselves are far too thin and not padded well enough. You can put a lot of weight inside the bag which is easy to do with a large body, battery grip, few chunky lens, flash unit, spare batteries, some essentials in the top half and all this weight is on your shoulder(s). That's why i bought a big bag, to fill it. You don't buy a big bag to put a 100g pocket sized point and shoot in. The straps aren't nearly padded enough and more importantly they are too narrow. Wider straps would have given the bag stability from shifting around on your back / shoulders while walking otherwise it has the potential to roll around and be very uncomfortable.

Camera portion of the bag.
Basically you're quite limited as to how to setup the dividers and the positioning of the kit. The two main dividers that the camera sits between are only two thirds covered in the loop side of the velcro material. This means you get to a point you can't divide or secure your kit any more so you loose space / potential to store things more securely. The same applies to the interior of the bag, it isn't wholly cover in anchor points so it's very limiting. The bag is easily capable of holding 8 lens or at least 8 chunky sized spaces provided you don't have a battery grip, 7 if you did but you can't because of the really poor design. It's such a let down.

It's a generic moan but you never get enough dividers to play with. You get the manufacturers vision of how to organise things and that's it unless you buy more from them or have spares. Would it really increase the cost that much to put an extra 2 or 3 extra dividers in to allow some customisations? There are infinite possible combinations of kit that can go into a bag of this size yet we fall at the first hurdle because we were supplied with 4 dividers.

Zip covers, there aren't any. You put you lovely expensive camera, lens and other bits inside and you start walking about the metal from the underside of the zips starts making contact with your shiny hardware, or even as you open and close the compartment. Even on my lowly Lowepro 160 the inside pocket zip start / end point in the top of the case had this semi circle of leatherette type covering which covered the entire zip assembly so no damage could be done. And again the main large zip that secured the top portion (lid) of the case was protected by a raised lip so no metal be it zip or teeth could come into contact with anything inside. Probably cost 50p in material extra but someone thought about the design thoroughly and implemented a solution. It wasn't cute, wasn't earth shattering just considered. Not so with this bag.

Protection or lack of. The padding is generally ok for the bag apart from the bottom and the corners. The bottom of the bag needs far more padding and some form of physical barrier from the ground because as is it i won't be putting any lens in the very bottom portion of the bag, it's not worth the risk. 1 cm of extra foam on the bottom / corners and a few strips of ribbed plastic would make a world of difference. The foam would offer more protection to an area that will get the most physical contact with harsh objects e.g. ground, rocks, overhead compartments on planes. The plastic ribs would means you aren't wearing out the nylon by having direct contact against the ground and it would offer a layer of protection against for example damp, wet or uneven surfaces.

The next to useless side pockets on the top portion of the bag. Put anything in them and it pushes through into the top pocket itself and is only separated by a wafer thin piece of nylon.

These are points covered by others such as the excellent video review by (Ms / Mrs Knight), short shorts aside ;).

No place for a bottle of water / coke or whatever on the exterior of the bag. Stuff leaks it's a fact of life and one place you don't want it to leak is in the top portion of a camera bag sat above a few grands worth of kit. Couple of mesh pockets on either side and it would of been sorted.

No ability hook things on to the straps. If the shoulder straps were wider some D loops or a few places to karabiner
some extra bits onto would make it far better.

Again this is from Ms / Mrs Knight's thorough video review but it needs stressing, the receiver points at the bottom of the bag that take the shoulder straps connections should reach far more round your body than they do. If you're going from the sling to X / rucksack position or vice versa the movement required to twist around with a great weight on your back is very uncomfortable. If the hip padding had been extended (and thicken) further round the hip / stomach it would make it far less stressing on your back / spine. Really poor effort.

So has it really earnt just 1 star, yes and no. It probably deserves 1 1/2, maybe even a generous 2 but when you factor in all the negatives i can't raise the rating above 1. This bag isn't cheap so why should i have to make do and compromise because of some very poor and ill thought out design. If i'd bought the Amazon basics rucksack i could have forgiven the odd negative because my expectation would have been lower as the saying goes you get what you pay for, but in this case you simply don't.

I can't recommend the bag at all.

After living with this bag for a while I've found some good and bad points. Kata have managed to merge the backpack and the sling bag, but there are a few snags...

This is the very best way to carry your camera and gear for quick access, After using one of the very similar bags with just one shoulder strap for a half an hour I had an aching shoulder, (even if I carried my camera in my hand).Now I have worn this bag all day with Camera and 5 lenses in it (+ waterproof coat).and hardly noticed the weight. It is superb.