Review - Lowepro Mini Trekker AW

One of the many things I like to do with my girlfriend is to go for country walks. We're members of Walking World, so we're never stuck for somewhere to go whereever we are. I like to use it as an excuse for taking pictures, and have bought an excellent backpack for carrying all my kit in. I can't recommend the Lowepro Mini Trekker highly enough. I found the best price at Amazon (link below), followed by Warehouse Express. I got mine last year for £59.99, and it was one of the best investments I've made.

The Lowepro Mini Trekker AW is a multi-pocketed canvas backpack, designed purposely with the travelling photographer in mind.

The Mini Trekker has a roomy main compartment inside - enough for carrying an SLR camera with a lens attached, and several more besides. The main compartment is further divided into smaller compartments, made of interchangable velcro segments. They're surprisingly secure, so your kit won't rattle around. All in all, assuming you use all of the inner pieces, there are around 12 compartments, though you can have less if you want. You'll comfortably have room for about 5 - 6 lenses of varying sizes, which is more than enough for most people, along with flash units, filters and other gadgets. The inner compartments are very well padded, providing excellent protection against all sorts of knocks.

The Mini Trekker also has several external pockets for other pieces of kit. I use these for storing some of my less essential (certainly less breakable) equipment, since there's no real padding on the outside. There is enough room to fit in a few trekking supplies, but not enough to hold all your hiking equipment as well as your camera kit. There is an excellent tripod holder in the form of two bungee cords on the outside. This took me a bit of practice to learn to use properly, but now I've worked out the best way to secure my tripod to it, I find it indispensible on long hikes. However, this is also where the only design flaw in the Mini Trekker rears its head. While carrying a tripod, you cannot use the built-in waterproof cover for the pack. This hasn't been a problem for me so far, but if you were on a long hike and got caught in some heavy rain, you'd need to seek a workaround. There are also some links on the outside of the pack for some add-on pockets I believe you can buy from Lowepro if all the storage space isn't enough, but I haven't had any need for them.

The pack is comfortable to wear with generously wide shoulder straps, and two front-fastening straps to keep movement to a minimum. I have given mine some fairly rough handling and found that it more than stands up to the task. If you're going on a lengthy walk for several days and want to carry just one pack including all your camera kit, then you'll need a larger pack than this. However, if you're going just on a day trek or you've got someone else to carry your other kit, you'll struggle to do better than the Lowepro Mini Trekker. For your £60, you're getting quality materials that won't let your camera get damaged, and allow you to carry your kit comfortably from A to B. As the Ronseal man might say...it does exactly what it says on the tin.