My latest article on Fstop Lounge is a review of a new bag from ThinkTank.
Trifecta 8 from ThinkTankPhoto
I was lucky enough to get my hands on this bag about 3-4 weeks ago, so I’ve had a really nice play with it.
I was after a bag for street photography mostly, but also wanted something I could use to carry my gear for video shoots where I didn’t want to bring in the whole kit and caboodle. I have bigger bags for when I am out on big corporate jobs, but I wanted something relatively small that I could carry one camera with some lenses and accessories or two cameras and well, fewer accessories. I also wanted something that I could carry an iPad.
There’s a lot to like about this bag. To start with, I think it looks really cool. I really love the curves of the bag. I appreciate that’s a very personal thing, but I really like it.
The reason it’s called a Trifecta, or at least, why I think it’s called that, is because there are three ways to get into the main compartment. This gives me options and I really like options.
It has one big door on the back which gives you full access to the main compartment and, while you pretty much have to take the bag off to access this, it also has doors on either side of this compartment so you can access each half from each side. So, one side could have your camera and one lens. While the other side could have two other lenses, microphones or something slightly larger than a memory card.
There are some dividers in here so it’s pretty easy to keep the side separate and then have two things padded from each other on each side. I would have liked it if they provided one more divider, so that one side holds two things and the other side could hold three things separated instead of the two.
Speaking of memory cards and batteries, one of the side doors has built-in pockets for storing these items. This is a great feature because you have really easy access to the accessories you need most often.
On the back of the big back door you have a pouch for an iPad mini, although I’ve found my full-sized iPad Air 2 fits in there as long as it goes in there naked without a case or cover. This brings me to one of my few gripes with the bag: I am not sure why they didn’t make this pouch just a touch larger and make it fit a full size iPad or other tablet. It isn’t anything major, but would have been nice. I know the Think Tank Trifecta 10, which is the DSLR model of this bag, holds a full iPad, but this idea of “they are using a smaller camera therefore they must be carrying a smaller tablet” is a bit silly I think.
This Trifecta of access makes it really easy to just loosen one strap, twist the bag to your front, and grab what you want from it. You just have to remember what side your stuff is on!
On the top, there’s another compartment with plenty of space and two pockets. I use this area for my sound gear normally. I would have liked some compartment divider options here as it is a pretty largish compartment and it would have been nice to be able to have dividers as an option here as things can flop about. This is more a compliment actually because this compartment is almost Tardis like in how surprisingly large it is.
There is also a loose pocket in the front but I haven’t quite worked out what to put in there – maybe you could hold small tripod in it?
The Trifecta 8 is really well padded. Not that I would want to take it into a rugby match, but it would probably be fine in a mosh pit. The straps are super comfy and it also has a centre clasps to hold the straps together across your chest which is a feature I really like on backpacks.
Would I recommend it? Yes. I really like the bag. At first, I thought that only two compartments wouldn’t be enough for me, but I’ve found this bag to be deceptively large in what it can hold and it’s very comfortable to wear. I can easily see myself grabbing the Trifecta 8 for all my smaller jobs and every weekend and I wouldn’t be surprised if you do too.
For a read of the article on the site, you can find it here - https://fstoplounge.com/2015/06/review-of-the-new-thinktankphoto-trifecta-8/
