Atlas Athlete Review
The Atlas Athlete camera backpack is one of the best camera bags I've found that can both hold camera gear and enough additional gear for a full day outing in the backcountry.
Gear Used In This Video
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Hey everyone, Brendan Wiltse, here today I'm going to be doing a review of the Atlas Athlete camera backpack.
Alright so let's get into this review I’ve been on a journey with photography backpacks for many years, and this, by far to date, is my favorite bag that I’ve had. The things that I look for in a camera bag, for my type of use, are it needs to be able to carry camera gear, it needs to be able to carry additional gear, it needs to have easy access to water, and the bag needs to be lightweight, and it should carry weight comfortably. For the most part, this pack checks all of those boxes, way more boxes than any other pack that I’ve tried, or I’ve reviewed. Alright, so let's break down some of the features of this pack. The first thing you'll notice is, and one of the big things for me, is that it has exterior water bottle pockets. For my type of use, I really prefer to use a water bottle over a hydration bladder, especially in a camera bag. And I like to have that water bottle accessible on the exterior of the pack so that without fully taking the pack off, or in some cases with this pack, I don't even need to take the pack off at all, I can reach around pop that water bottle out, take a drink put the water bottle back in. That is a huge thing for me. On the other side of the pack I have my tripod set up, this pack really doesn't have a specific area to carry a tripod. I like it when you do have a center mount for the tripods that keep the weight of the pack centered but in this case I have the tripod in the opposite water bottle holder.
The pack itself, the design is a top-loading pack, so you unclip the brain or the lid fold that open, and then you have access to the interior of the pack. One of the things that really sets this pack apart is the amount of storage space you get on the inside of the pack. And that's really important for me because I’m not interested in just carrying camera gear, I need to carry all the gear that's going to keep me safe and comfortable while I’m out in the field. For my type of photography, I’m hiking many miles into remote locations, it's really important that I have the additional gear to keep me safe. This isn't even filled completely but this is sort of the type of stuff I would carry on a summer outing similar to today.
• I have a lightweight rain shell
• a down insulating puff jacket just in case I get cold or I need to spend the night
• then I have this bag here which has all of my 10 essentials; an emergency tarp, a first aid kit, a way to start fire, some extra food, a compass, a map, toiletries, sunscreen. All of the thing I need f I’m going to spend some time out in the woods to keep myself safe.
That all fits on the inside of the pack with quite a bit of room in there. I could fit a lot more gear in here if I needed to. On the front of the pack, there is a large sort of kangaroo pouch that you can jam other gear into. If I start to fill up the interior this is a great place to shove my rain jacket, or if it is drizzling and I’m taking that jacket on and off, that's a great spot to shove that. There's also a small pocket in the front here to store some smaller items, maybe snacks, those sorts of things that you want quickly accessible. Then we have the two large side pockets great for holding water bottles and or a tripod. There is a pocket here on the inside of this water bottle area that is suitable for a hydration bladder. I like that they've put this towards the exterior of the pack because if you do have a failure in that bladder you're less likely to have that water make it into the really important part of the pack which is the camera bag. On the top of the inside of the lid, we have a pocket, I think of this as more of a security pocket so for me I often put my wallet, car keys, those sorts of things in this portion of the pack. Then we have a small zippered pocket on the very top, I usually keep extra batteries in here because when want them I want to know where they are and get to them quickly if I need to swap out. Then we have a very large top portion of the pack that again is great for items that you need quick access to. I have sunglasses, this is a little torch that I keep with me, if I need to start fire or lite a camp stove, my headlamp, those items that I need access to quickly, I keep in this top portion of the pack. So that's all the locations where you're going to store additional gear with this pack. Like I said there's a lot of room in here which is really important for my type of photography.
If we go to the camera portion of the pack. This is typical of most camera bags these days, it has a back entry into the camera bag. This one you zip and the whole back of the pack folds out including the hip belts. Some of them will only zip within the hip belt area. This one includes the full hip bell zips open. On the interior, we have a pocket up here that I use to store memory cards because I'm always forgetting them. This is a great spot for me to store additional memory cards. Then there’s this non-zippered access pocket here. This is if I’m carrying cables or anything like that, I usually stick those in this portion of the pack. Then we get to the interior of this pack, which will carry quite a bit of gear. As you can see I have my Nikon Z7 with the 24-70 F2.8 lens with the hood on in here. I have my Mavic 2 Pro drone, controller, a mount from my phone that goes in the controller, and two additional batteries all for the drone in this portion of the pack.
What's really unique about the Atlas packs though is this upper portion here actually does sort of a magic trick where if you pull this, it pulls that portion out, giving you more space on the interior of the pack. If you're going longer distances and you're carrying more outdoor and everyday gear you can gain yourself some storage on the inside of the pack by sacrificing a little bit in the camera compartment. Then if you need to switch back to carrying more camera gear you just push that in, you get that storage space back and you're good to go. This design I find is really a nice balance between what you see in F-stop gear packs and Shimoda’s where you have internal camera units that you have to swap out depending on what type of gear you're carrying. That's a very versatile design but the disadvantages of that are two-fold in my mind. One, you have to buy multiple camera units depending on how you want to pack your bag. The other one is because those camera units are separate from the bag itself which adds more weight to the pack. In this case, the padding and the materials and everything are integrated and that saves quite a bit of weight. This is one of the lightest camera backpacks that are suitable for backpacking and hiking that I’ve found on the market.
The last thing I’ll say about this pack is the zipper pulls and everything are very nice. Everything operates well, it is reasonably comfortable to carry long distances. I've used this in Hawaii, the Adirondacks, Vermont in a lot of different locations and a lot of different types of hikes. I've used it as primarily a hiking backpack where I just carried my DSLR or my mirrorless camera and I’ve used it loaded up carrying a lot of camera gear and even putting additional gear into the main portion of the pack and it's handled all of that fairly well. It has a bit of lumbar support here, if I had one critique of this pack it would be I would like to see this much larger. Again, that helps to pull the weight into your hips and transfer that weight from your shoulders onto your hips. The hip belt has a very reasonable amount of padding, I think it's a nice balance between the hip belt of some other camera packs, like Lowpros that are very thin, and then being overly thick. It's a nice padded hip belt, it grabs your hips nicely, and the same with the shoulder straps.
The belts and everything are reasonably sized, they're not overdone, they save on weight and they get the job done. I like hip belts that have the tensioner on the belt itself rather than the buckle this makes it really easy to pull the tension from both sides to get the appropriate tension on your hip belt. The one last thing that I forgot to mention here, as I’m going through this, is there are side pockets on this pack and they're sort of a unique design, you open the little pocket and then you pull out this bag that is quite substantial. One of the ideas behind this from the Atlas engineers is that this is big enough to put a lens in. So if you're running and gunning and moving between a lot of different locations and you want to throw in an additional lens and swap lenses out these pockets are big enough to accommodate most lenses. That also though can be used to carry a water bottle, snacks, you know anything like. The only downside is these do not cinch up and so whatever is in here isn't going to be completely secured. The other downside is the zippered pocket that these come out of really isn't accessible when this is open. Obviously, it's not usable when this is in there. If I had another critique, I would have liked to see one of these two pockets on either side just a regular old zipper pocket, something that's suitable to put a cell phone, a granola bar, a goo packet, or something in there so you can have quick access to some calories, some nutrition, or other essential items. Overall, I am really happy with this bag. This is my go-to bag for every outing even hiking, there are a few instances where I switch back over to a traditional hiking bag because it's not often that I’m not heading out with some sort of camera equipment. The only time that I can't use this bag is if I’m going on longer outings in the winter, it's just not quite large enough for that. If I wanted to get another Atlas pack they have the Atlas Adventure pack that is the next size up from this pack. That would be perfectly suitable for winter day hikes, sunrise or sunset shoots, as well as backpacking overnight. You could do an overnight with this pack during the summer if you're fast and light, but if you're going to be going multiple days and you're carrying a little more gear you're probably going to want to size up to the next pack. That's my review of the Atlas Athlete photography pack, it is my favorite photography backpack. I hope you enjoyed this review.
