REVIEWED: Manfrotto Gitzo Adventury 30L camera backpack

This outdoorsy kit bag for wildlife, nature and landscape photographers can take a DSLR, mirrorless cameras … and even drones

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Instagram may be full of stunning wildlife, nature and landscape photos, but the great outdoors and great photography don’t always mix as easily as they should. While there are plenty of camera backpacks out there, very few are specifically designed for photographers who need to hike into the wilderness and stay there for hours or days on end. Manfrotto’s Gitzo Adventury 30L camera backpack is trying to change that.

Manfrotto Gitzo Adventury camera backpack: DSLRs, mirrorless cameras & drones

The Gitzo comes in two sizes – 30-liter and 45-liter – so the former, which TravGear tested, is admittedly best suited to a day trip rather than an overnight stay in the wilderness.  It’s designed to carry both pro DSLRs with telephoto lenses up to 600 mm, and mirrorless cameras, but its interchangeable dividers can be configured to fit not only extra lenses and accessories but a DJI Phantom drone. For some outdoor photographers, that’s a must-have feature.

Manfrotto Gitzo Adventury camera backpack: capacity & design

You can get an awful lot of gear into this backpack. For instance, it can easily fit a couple of DSLRs, one with a 200 mm lens attached, plus four more lenses, one of them up to 400 mm in size. It’s also got separate padded compartments for a 15-inch laptop and a 12.9-inch tablet.

Manfrotto Gitzo Adventury camera backpack: roll-top

A unique feature of this bag is the roll-top wet bag on the top, which is designed to keep a jacket or coat bone dry in bad weather. However, within the pocket are a couple of tough Velcro-fastened zones for storing other items quickly. The front of the bag contains plenty of straps that can easily be configured to hold a very large tripod on the front, while there are also two zipped side pockets that could take tripod legs.

Manfrotto Gitzo Adventury camera backpack: main compartment

All gear is stored in a pull-out padded box-like area that can only be accessed by putting the front of the pack onto the ground. Do that and the U-shaped zip opening does make it easy to see everything inside, but the extra zips that open an additional mesh covering interfere with the lip at the top of the bag. It’s unnecessarily fiddly, but all very protective. The entire section can be removed as one.

Manfrotto Gitzo Adventury camera backpack: conclusion

You can get a lot into this tough water-repellent bag despite its small size, but being efficient on capacity doesn’t stretch to weight efficiency. This is a very heavy bag, even when empty, thanks in part to the great protection (all zips are waterproof), and great build quality. However, it does mean it’s going to be slow going when it’s full of gear, and while the back-opening style won’t appeal to everyone, the Manfrotto Gitzo Adventury 30L camera backpack is definitely worth checking out.

Price as reviewed: UK £219.95