Being a full-time military photographer I primarily used this bag to carry around my camera gear. I then reached out to F-stop about testing one of their bags to see if I liked it enough to become my new primary camera carrier, a few weeks later a Tilopa showed up at my doorstep. Back in November, I noticed my current camera bag was starting to come apart at one of the zippers. Fast-forward 15 years and in the photography community they are a brand synonymous with quality and cutting edge designs. Initially, the company’s goal was to combine camera bags and performance backpacks into one, creating a bag to fill this void in the market at the time. If you have been looking for a backpack bag like this for your gear, do yourself a favor and look into buying an F-Stop Tilopa.F-stop Gear is a camera bag company that has been around since 2005. It’s a hardcore camera bag that can take a beating while keeping your gear safe, that also doubles as a very comfortable and convenient bag to use for traveling. If I had to send it back, I would be buying one, no doubt about it. Well, I was wrong, very wrong.Īfter using it for a few months as my main travel bag, I am extremely thankful that F-Stop asked Shotkit to review the Tilopa and let me keep it. I honestly had planned on giving the Tilopa a fair review and then shipping it back since I didn’t think I would get much use out of it. Well, with 2016 being a year where I will be traveling more than I ever have, I need the F-Stop Tilopa. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I honestly didn’t see a bag like this being something I would want to use, let alone need. If you’re a photographer that likes to go hiking with their gear, camping, or any form of traveling, you should really take a look at this F-Stop Tilopa backpack. Pretty reasonable price with both ICU’s compared to other bags of the same quality and size. The bag itself, without the ICU’s, is $259. I own two ICU’s, the large Pro which costs an additional $99, and the Small Shallow which costs an additional $55. If I want to go on a day hike and or travel overseas to go trekking through the wilderness, the new F-Stop Tilopa is what I now will be bringing.įor all that the F-Stop Tilopa offers, it’s a very affordable bag that I would buy over and over again. If I need to pack a good amount of camera gear, and not as much clothes, I can use the larger ICU. If I need to travel and pack a lot of clothes on a trip and only one camera body with a few lenses, I can use one of the smaller ICU’s. They are the actual removable packs that protect your gear, and make your bag customizable so that you can pack it anyway you like.į-Stop designs their bags for the photographer, but you can use their bags in many different ways using the ICU’s. The ICU’s are the housing units that F-Stop uses to hold your camera gear. Photo Credit: Dan Sauer The Internal Camera Units Had there been an issue, I would have been out some clothes, but my camera gear was safe with me the entire time. The Tilopa allowed me to rest easy, as I was able to simply remove the ICU with my camera gear, and my tripod, and send my bag of clothes off with the other checked bags.īoth times my bag was there at the baggage claim with no issues. The 2nd trip, it was over packed and they were making a lot of the passengers check their larger bags. The first time, I had a connecting flight where I had to fly on a smaller plane where the F-Stop Tilopa wouldn’t fit in the overhead compartment. I had this happen on two of my 3 trips, no lie. This can be frightening for anyone that has their gear in a bag that the airline wants to toss down a bag shoot and into the mix of bags that may or may not be there when you land. Now, for all of you that have traveled with your gear know, some flights snag you and make you check a bag if the flight is packed. I was able to pack enough clothes, camera gear, and a tripod, and store it in the overhead compartment. I needed to pack a little more camera gear for the wedding, and the large ICU was perfect.Īll 3 trips, it did the job. I used the small one for 2 of the 3 trips, and the large one for a trip that I took to shoot a wedding in Tennessee. I have two ICU’s (Internal Camera Units), the small one and the large one. I used it to pack enough clothes for the trip as well as most of the camera gear I would need, anything that wouldn’t fit, I put in my 2nd carry on. I took the Tilopa on 3 trips with me, each of which consisted of flying and lugging it around multiple airports, as well as using it to carry all my camera gear and clothing for each trip. Sure, I wouldn’t be able to fully push it to extremes, but I wanted to at least be able to push it as best I could. Before writing this review of the F-Stop Tilopa, I wanted to make sure I tested the bag as best I could.
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