The Harness System
A backpack that you use to carry your gear is sometimes weakened by a poorly made harness system. That’s not the case with the Lowepro Primus AW. This bag uses an 8 point harness system that allows you to comfortably carry any load. The system consists of a sternum strap that glides on a Glidelock system of its own, two well padded shoulder straps that contain a DryFlo quick wicking lining and a heavy duty waist strap that seems much too large for the bag, but really isn’t as you’ll find out. To increase comfort, the whole back area is also lined with this DryFlo material.
Harkening back to its backcountry roots, the Primus AW also has a whistle built right into one of the buckles on the sternum strap. This could come in real handy if you’re stuck in the woods somewhere or if you’re out in the urban jungle, call attention to yourself so you don’t get mugged.
Storing Your Stuff Inside
The Primus AW contains two storage compartments: One on the bottom for storing all your camera gear, and one on top for storing everything else. This bag contains no laptop compartment, but if you carry a small portable laptop like an Asus Eee PC, you should be able to fit that in this top compartment no problem. For anything larger, you’re pretty much out of luck.
However, having said that, the compartment does containt quite a bit of extra room for things like flash units, chargers, and other accessories. In addition to all that stuff, I was also able to carry a full change of clothes with me inside the bag along with some extra toiletries. The flap that covers this compartment has pockets for and organizers for things like pens, keys, USB hard drives, pretty much anything else you can think of that is relativesly small, and preferably flat as the flap doesn’t allow much expansion.
The bottom compartment is built for your camera gear and features user configurable compartments to fit most setups which include DSLRs with lenses up to 70 – 200mm attached, compact 3CCD DV camcorders, and a couple extra lenes and other related accessories. The flap that covers up this compartment has a built in memroy card holder that holds two compact flash cards even with their holders. The rest of the flap gives you room for extra batteries, chargers, or filters and caps.
At first, I thought that both compartments were designed to open under the harness area to prevent theft as they cannot be accessed while you had the bag on. Although it does serve this purpose extremely well, the real reason is more of a backcountry reason, which is to prevent the straps from getting dirty when you lay the bag on the ground and need to access your gear. I also found this extremely handy for urban assaults because there is no telling where someone spat or urinated or worse in some foreign countries.
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