MADE Products CA-2001-BLK Seattle Sling Waterproof Bag (Black)
by Made Products
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Photo Product Details
Manufacturer: Made ProductsModel: CA-2001-BLK
Color: Black
Product features:
- No zippers-proven dry-bag technology works every time
- Roll three times-dirt, dust, sand and water stay out
- Impact protection-padded inner box keeps your gear safe
- Quck access to your gear-don't miss a shot
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of MADE Products CA-2001-BLK Seattle Sling Waterproof Bag (Black)
Customer Review: Great camera bag specialized for water-resistant uses, but I like Slingshot 200 better.
Summary: 4 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Fuzzy Wuzzy's Summary:
**** Recommended with warm fuzzies.
Having frequently used both Lowepro Slingshot 200 and Slingshot 300 camera backpacks for over two years now, I was curious to compare Made Products' Seattle Sling to see how well it functioned.
While the well-padded sling that goes diagonally across the back of the bag can be hung over your left shoulder so that the bag loosely rests on your left shoulder blade, it is designed to be primarily worn by slipping both your head and left arm through the sling so that the sling comes over your right shoulder, goes diagonally down the front of your body, and connects to the bag behind the left side of your abdomen. Once the bag is slung onto your back, a smaller strap coming from the bottom-right of your abdomen clasps onto the sling in the front at chest level.
One main advantage of this sling design is that you can conveniently access the bag's contents by unclasping the smaller strap and rotating the sling clockwise around your neck to bring the bag from behind your left side until it rests on your abdomen. With the bag slung in front of you, you can now open up the main flap that is fastened using a large Velcro strip, and you can proceed to change cameras, lenses, flash cards, batteries, or access other supplies. I have made changes to my camera before while still slowly walking with the backpack slung on my abdomen as the top-facing part of the bag can be used as a platform to rest the camera body upon.
However, some people, notably women, may not like how the sling strap and second smaller strap tighten diagonally across the chest area. So this configuration will not be comfortable for everyone, especially since a fully-loaded sling backpack can pull on the chest with its front diagonal straps.
The following review compares the Seattle Sling with the Lowepro Slingshot 200 All Weather Backpack (Black). Lowepro's Slingshot 300 is a roomier version of the Slingshot 200 and will carry a larger camera with a larger telephoto zoom lens attached. The Slingshot 200 is comparable to the Seattle Sling in size and appearance, and thus both camera backpacks are competing products.
Both the Seattle Sling and the Slingshot 200 have high build quality, with great stitching and flush seams. Both backpacks offer the same amount of padding protection.
Both the Seattle Sling and the Slingshot 200 have a similar size for the main compartment. They will both hold either one larger full-frame DSLR or two smaller DSLRs. Inside both backpacks, I can carry both my Canon EOS 30D with a small zoom lens and EOS 40D with the 70-200mm f/4L attached. The maximum total allowable length of the camera body and attached lens for both backpacks is right at 10 inches. With the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L lens attached to the 40D, it becomes hard to close the Velcro flap, and most 300mm and larger lens will likely not fit when attached to the camera.
Both the Seattle Sling and the Slingshot 200 have similar sling designs, with the sling going from your right shoulder down to the lower left side of your abdomen. It would have been nice to have the option to reverse the direction of the sling, for example by having the sling removable and reversible via buckle clasps, but neither backpack has that option.
The Slingshot 200's sling, however, does have a buckle clasp on the bottom that lets me quickly unsling the bag without having to pull the sling up over my head. This seemingly minor convenience feature becomes quite useful if I am wearing a wide-rim safari/hiking hat or even a baseball cap with a wide bill. With the Seattle Sling's non-detachable sling, taking off the backpack means pulling the sling up over my head and possibly moving or knocking my hat/cap off. This might seem like a trivial nitpick until you keep bumping your hat/cap every time you pull the sling up over your head to take off the backpack. Slingshot 200 wins this comparison.
The Slingshot 200 has stiffer compartment dividers while the Seattle Sling has softer compartment dividers. Both backpacks use Velcro to hold the compartment dividers in their place. The compartment dividers inside the Slingshot 200 are covered with nylon, while the dividers inside the Seattle Sling are covered with a very soft plush fabric that reminds me of the fabric used to line some jewelry and necklace boxes. While the Seattle Sling's dividers are softer to the touch, I personally prefer the stiffer foam that is used in the Slingshot 200's dividers making its dividers slightly less prone to flexing due to the weight of the camera gear compared with the softer dividers used in the Seattle Sling. Slingshot 200 wins this comparison.
The Slingshot 200 has far more storage pockets than the Seattle Sling. The Seattle Sling only has 3 pockets made of elastic webbing. When the top flap is fully opened, a V-shaped trough opens up next to these 3 elastic webbing pockets that implies one can also store items inside this trough. But I would never keep items here since it is not a self-contained area and things would fall out of there too easily. The 3 small pockets made of elastic webbing can hold flash cards, film, and batteries. But with the tops of the pockets being unsecured, I was afraid that thin items such as CF cards would fall out of them, so I attached two small squares of Velcro to act as closures in each of these 3 pockets. On the inside wall of the main compartment, the Seattle Sling does have a large flat Velcroed compartment that is occupied by a 9x13 inch section of foam insert. I suppose that one could store large flat items like owner's manuals inside this area, but it is not a good place to store batteries, flash cards, and supplies; the pocket is too wide, deep, and narrow, and retrieving small items would require fishing around with one's hands. By comparison, the Slingshot 200 has Velcroed, webbed, and zippered pockets in various sizes: a webbed pocket in the main compartment that also holds a soft LCD screen protector cover fabric; a Velcroed pocket on the inside of the cover flap that holds flash cards, film, or batteries; an outside zippered compartment that is roomy enough to hold an entire point-and-shoot camera; and an even larger half-circle zippered compartment that can hold another lens, manuals, air blower, supplies, and manuals. The extra half-circle storage compartment on the Slingshot 200 makes its total length 2 inches longer than the Seattle Sling, but having two externally accessible compartments without needing to open up the main compartment is a huge plus for me. I do also own a Domke PhoTOGS photographer vest with 18 pockets on it, but there are plenty of times when I do not wear that vest and so I miss having external pockets on the Seattle Sling. Slingshot 200 wins big in this comparison.
The Seattle Sling has more external loop straps than the Slingshot 200. The Slingshot 200 has 3 external loop straps through which you can insert a monopod or smaller tripod. The Seattle Sling has 4 pairs of loop straps as well as an external flap secured with two buckle clasps that can hold a larger tripod than the Slingshot 200. Seattle Sling wins this comparison.
The Slingshot 200 is less obtrusive than the Seattle Sling, and this is a good thing for two reasons. The exterior of both backpacks are black nylon. The Slingshot 200 has a small "Lowepro" logo on the top of the backpack and another logo on the padded sling. The Seattle Sling has a bold "Protection In Action / Camera Armor" red logo facing outward and a "Camera Armor" logo on the padded sling. There are some situations, like walking in urban areas and foreign countries, when I do not want to advertise that I am carrying a camera. Unless you recognize the "Lowepro" logo as a maker of camera bags, I could just as well be carrying clothing as I schlep from hostel to hostel. I tried pulling the red "Protection In Action / Camera Armor" logo off of my bag, but could not. The far more obtrusive aspect of the Seattle Sling is that the large 3x13 inch Velcro that closes the main flap makes a loud abrasive sound when you pull it apart to access the main compartment. This presents problems if you are, for instance, in a quiet room not wanting to attract too much attention, or if you suddenly bump into some nearby wildlife out in the woods and you did not have your camera out already. In contrast, I have quickly unzipped my Slingshot 200 while making only a slight low-pitched unzipping sound. Slingshot 200 wins this comparison.
As an aside, on the Seattle Sling, the 3x13 inch "loop" side of the Velcro is fitted on a wrinkly piece of flexing nylon. At times, the "hook" side of the Velcro on the closing flap aligns more evenly with the "loop" side if I first use one hand to stretch out the Velcro "loop" flap. This big section of Velcro would fit together more naturally if the "loop" flap was made far stiffer so that it always landed consistently underneath the Velcro "hook" flap.
The ventilated ribbed back of the Seattle Sling is a bit more comfortable under hot sweaty conditions compared with the non-ribbed back of the Slingshot 200. This is only an issue in hot climates, but I do like the ribbed back on the Seattle Sling better. But in climates not as hot, the Slingshot 200 does have comfortable soft back.
The Seattle Sling is more waterproof than the Slingshot 200. The main foam compartment of the Seattle Sling fits inside a durable red vinyl bag (which has a strong petrochemical plastic odor to it). Two pairs of magnets at the top lip of the bag provide the initial closure, and then you roll/fold the top lip three times before tightly securing both ends of the bag to buckle clasps on both ends of the backpack. While this is water-resistant, it is not really totally waterproof or watertight. When closed up this way, the Seattle Sling's contents would probably survive kayaking or whitewater rafting through class 5 rivers or possibly even having the entire bag dropped in six feet of water and quickly pulled up again. But if the Seattle Sling fell off of a boat or sea kayak and was not retrieved until someone later fetched it from the ocean floor wearing scuba gear, the contents would likely be wet.
In comparison, the "All Weather" aspect of the Slingshot 200 consists of a waterproof cover that normally stays concealed inside a Velcro-secured pocket along the back padding of the backpack. To use it, you pull it out of its storage pocket and the waterproof cover is lined with an elastic band to wrap the cover around the entire front of the backpack, like the way that a fitted sheet fits on a mattress. This cover will not protect under whitewater conditions or if the backpack was quickly submersed in water. But the Slingshot 200's cover is fully effective when exposed to torrential rains. Last September, I was in Beijing visiting the Forbidden City when it rained heavily all morning and into the afternoon. I wore a hooded rain jacket with the camera tucked underneath it, and I had the Slingshot 200 with its All Weather cover protecting the backpack's contents. (The photographs from that gray day were not as contrasty, but did have an interesting misty atmosphere and mood to them.) Seattle Sling wins this comparison of water resistance and repeated prolonged exposure to water.
The Seattle Sling advertises that it provides "quick access to your gear". However, with all buckle clasps closed and the vinyl bag fully rolled up, I found that the Slingshot 200 was a quicker to fully open than the Seattle Sling. Furthermore, the Slingshot 200 was much quicker to fully close than the Seattle Sling. The Seattle Sling's vinyl bag can be removed from the backpack so that you just have the foam compartment inside. But then you are left with two half-circle holes at the top and bottom of the backpack and a Velcro-closed top flap with openings along the sides that are large enough for both dust and moisture to enter. Slingshot 200 wins here for both ease-of-access and speed-of-access.
The Seattle Sling costs about 50% more than the Slingshot 200. Slingshot 200 wins considerably on the basis of price.
Fuzzy Wuzzy's Conclusion:
In summary, the Seattle Sling mainly has advantages over the Slingshot 200 in applications involving lots of water: river/lake/sea kayaking, whitewater rafting, canoeing and boating, hiking and camping in rain forests and very wet areas. Thus, it is no surprise that Made Products is located in Seattle, where all such situations can apply. My next international adventure is almost four weeks in Africa later this year, with a combination of urban and safari outings. I plan to only take my Lowepro Slingshot for this trip because I do like it better. But if your main intent is to carry SLR cameras over lakes, oceans, and rivers, this is the best camera bag ever made for this. 4 stars for Seattle Sling and 5 stars for Slingshot 200.
One more note... Amazon's "Product Description" is a bit misleading; at the time of writing this review, it says: "We shield while you shoot! Camera Armor is a line of rugged, custom fit SLR digital camera cases engineered to provide maximum protection from impact and abrasion while allowing full access to all features of the camera. The four-part system includes Body Armor, Lens Armor, LCD Shield, and Lens Cap Leash. ..." If you browse over to cameraarmor.us, you will see that "Camera Armor" is actually their line of protective cases for DSLRs, even though the Seattle Sling backpack also has the "Camera Armor" text on its logo.
Description of MADE Products CA-2001-BLK Seattle Sling Waterproof Bag (Black)
We shield while you shoot! Camera Armor is a line of rugged, custom fit SLR digital camera cases engineered to provide maximum protection from impact and abrasion while allowing full access to all features of the camera. The four-part system includes Body Armor, Lens Armor, LCD Shield, and Lens Cap Leash. We love our cameras as much as you do. That's why we designed Camera Armor - the only choice for full time protection. Each model is engineered to provide maximum protection while allowing full access to all controls, compartments, and ports. You focus on the shot - we've got you covered.Cases & Bags
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