The Peter McKinnon Nomadic 25 liter camera pack is the perfect size (at least in my opinion) but it is freaking expensive. I bought it with my own money to find out if it's worth the investment for you.
I tested it in four categories:
Comfort
Design
Durability
Value
Now it's time to rate them all on a scale of 1-10.
Comfort
I hiked 28 miles with the pack over two days and I had it pretty well loaded down (about 20lbs of gear, so the comfort rating is in. It's a 10/10! It's very, very comfortable.
The straps have a dense but breathable foam that stopped them from digging into my shoulders, and the back has almost a memory foam feel, but a little firmer. Its contoured design helps a lot to get air back there, improving the breathability.
There's a chest strap included and waist straps can be bought separately, both of which help evenly distribute the weight throughout your back. I'm pretty confident in saying no matter how heavy you load this thing down, it's just going to be comfortable. It's going to be comfortable all the way.
Design (Exterior)
The pack's design is good in a lot of ways, but there's some places where it's lacking, so I'm going to nitpick on it.
First, there's no side access at all. So if I want the fastest route to my camera, I have to keep it in the top, and that's just a better place for storing other things. It would be nice to simply sling the bag around my side without ever having to put it in the dirt, because it got pretty dirty over the miles.
Next, I would absolutely love to have some outside pockets, but there's none on the bag at all. There's plenty of items that I want to keep easily accessible during the day, but there's no way to do that on the outside of the bag, which is a huge disappointment.
The magnetic side pockets are super nice. They fit my standard 32oz water bottle perfectly - it just kind of slips in and holds nice and tight. When you don't need them, a magnet along the top keeps the pockets nice flush with the bag, giving it a nice, sleek profile. At least where they do put pockets, the pockets are nice.
The chest strap can be adjusted by detaching little clips and moving them up and down different anchors on the shoulder straps, which stops the clips from sliding up and down accidentally, but also kind of makes it a pain in the butt to adjust. This anchor system can be seen throughout the rest of the pack, where loops of heavy duty fabric provide strong but low profile mounting locations for any nomadic accessories that you'd like to add, like waist straps or tripod clips. Yeah, the tripod clips are an accessory. I'll talk about that when we get to value.
Taking into account that the backpack has no back pockets and no side access, I have to give it a 5/10 for exterior design.
Design (Interior)
The interior of the bag is a soft fabric that holds quite well to the Velcro of the dividers, and the ladder system at the top allows you to customize how big you want the top pocket to be. This is a pretty neat feature for YouTubers or vloggers because it allows you to store a whole camera set-up (with a shotgun mic attached) in the top compartment for easy access.
Now let's talk interior pockets. There's one on the inside top area of the bag and two attached to the back for storing your smaller things like filters, batteries, or SD cards. If you get the waist straps, each one of these also has a full length zipper pocket that you can store your cell phone or other things. Finally, of course, there is a devoted pocket in the back for storing your laptop, which is something we've just come to expect nowadays, but it's nice and it's padded inside.
10/10 interior design.
Durability
Let's talk materials and durability because when things go sideways, you want to know your bag is going to one, not just obliterate into a million pieces - and two, protect your gear.
As far as protection goes, this bag, man, it is solid. It's not hard case level solid, but all of the materials used on the shell, straps, and zippers are high quality. Not only that, it's also water resistant, which means you can put this thing through the ringer and it's really easy to clean up afterwards.
After hiking more miles than a marathon with this pack in the mountains, it still looks practically brand new after being cleaned up, which is quite impressive to me. There's a lot of structure on the top and sides of the bag, but there's not so much at the bottom. Since the dividers inside are soft, it doesn't do a whole lot to stop crushing force. So definitely don't stand on it.
I'd say this is a 7/10 when it comes to durability, but it kind of sacrifices that durability for the sake of being lighter, which makes it a lot better for carrying around day to day or on long hikes. The Nomadic Pack delivers. It is not a disappointment in any way when it comes to the build quality or the materials used.
Value
It's a cool pack that delivers on a lot of fronts, but it's not cheap. At retail, the pack costs $300 and that's literally just the bag itself, the shell. They part out everything else, which is mildly infuriating. Even the dividers are sold separately for $40. How are you selling something that's called a camera bag and it doesn't have dividers? All told, if you want the tripod straps, the waist straps and the dividers, the whole set will cost you around $390.
Honestly, I just wish that they would have charged $390 for the backpack with all these things included. For some reason that would feel a little bit less icky than hosing me with $20 tripod straps. You're paying for high quality materials, but you're also paying a premium for the name.
When it comes to value, since it is quality, but still pretty, pretty pricey, I'm going to have to go with 5/10.
My Opinion
The Peter Mckinnon everyday 25l camera bag is high quality, comfortable, and well designed as a daily-driver, but the parted-out purchase model and high cost make the buyer experience very frustrating. There's certainly cheaper backpacks out there that perform almost as well, but if you really like the skull-and-crossbones, you won't be disappointed.
What did you think of my Peter Mckinnon x Nomatic 25l Camera Bag review? You can check out current pricing on the bag here.
Happy creating. See you 'round the Underground.
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