No New Bag Purchase Necessary!
Whew! I almost fell off the cliff! I almost ordered the beautiful Tom Bihn Makers bag recommended by Todd L. Cumpston and some others in response to my recent post on seeing if one of the several camera bags I own could serve as a multi-purpose art bag. I really studied the specs of the Makers bag. I read reviews and watched videos. I listened to what people liked and what they didn’t. Then I measured one of my favorite camera bags made by Tenba, the Cooper Slim 13.
Back pocket holds my 12.9 iPad Pro and Coroplast drawing board, though I can’t zipper it closed.
It turns out that the Cooper Slim is the Makers bag in other clothing! Plus, it doesn’t have the problem mentioned by several Makers bag reviewers of not fully covering the interior. The Cooper Slim is a solid bag with water-repellent peach-wax cotton canvas material, silicone-coated shadow ripstop nylon, YKK® zippers and heavily-reinforced stitching. It does not suffer from sagging as, again, several Makers bag reviewers commented on. The Cooper Slim doesn’t have specific interior water bottle enclosures but does have expandable, zippered end pockets on the outside that can be used to hold water bottles or other items. The Cooper Slim, since it’s essentially a camera bag, has a removable, padded camera insert which has topless pockets on the outside of one side and hook-n-loop dividers to configure it for various cameras and accessories.
So, bottom line, the Cooper Slim works great as my art and camera bag. It has a rear, zippered pocket that holds my 12.9 iPad Pro and my folded Coroplast drawing board. With the camera insert I can create a compartment at one end for my E-M5 II camera with a 12-40mm lens attached (or my Panasonic GX85 with the Panasonic 14-140mm lens) and put my art supply bag at the other end. My little red Eagles Creek bag with a collection of personal items such as hearing aid accessories, bandaids, flashlight, Apple AirPods, charging cables and plug, dongles for my iPad, etc., fits atop these. I can, if needed, lay one of my lightweight tripods that collapses to about 15” on top of that. On the outside of the insert there are also two topless pockets. I keep an iPad attachment that lets me plug in a variety of accessories in one and right now the other is empty. In front of the insert but in the main cavity, I can fit two 5” x 8 1/4” sketchbooks.
The Cooper Slim also has two more expandable and topless pockets that are covered by the closure flap. Plus on this side of the bag and behind the two front pockets there is another large, deep zippered pocket which has three additional pockets of varying sizes. Here I keep attachment dongles for my 12.9 iPad Pro, camera memory cards, a zip-loc bag with paper towels, and still have space for other thin items. In the exterior pockets I have a high capacity power brick to charge things and a smaller power pack as well. I can store an additional 5x8 sketchbook in one of the pockets if needed.The closure flap is held closed by two large hook-n-loop patches on the exterior pockets.
I knew this Tenba bag was a great camera bag so I’m very happy to discover it can be more. Another feature that originally drew me to the Cooper Slim bag is its - at the time - unique top entry feature. With the top flap secured using the hook-n-loop patches, you can still enter the bag through a zippered opening on the top of the bag. This means that I can get to either my red Eagle Creek bag or my art supply bag easily without pulling up the front flap. To remove my camera, however, I would need to open the flap and dig it out. However, that is not an issue as I see my art gear as primary these days and the camera as secondary.
Outside end pockets aren’t just for water bottles.
I have been using this bag for a week now and it’s working out nicely. Obviously, I haven’t tried it yet as a carry-on bag for travel so the jury is still out as to whether it will work for me in that situation. If it doesn’t, then I’ll turn to my trusty Vanquest SKITCH-12 bag. Plus, I can simply transfer the Cooper Slim camera insert from it to the Vanquest bag. I know the SKITCH-12 bag will hold more than enough travel necessities!
