Review: Lowepro Whistler BP 350 AW II
I took this bag out on an overnight shoot for the magazine – I wanted to take quite a bit of kit and this was a pleasure to lug around on assignment.
There was plenty of internal option to reconfigure the inside of the bag to carry, right up to the most substantial zoom lens. This feels like an intuitive and well thought-out camera bag.
There are some really nice touches, such as one of the Velcro dividers that doubles up as mini storage pouches – perfect in my case to store a lens cloth for easy accessibility. The inside has all the bespoke pockets you’d expect to hold memory cards and other small bits there are also a couple of useful discrete external pockets.
This feels like a robust bag with a tough underside, I like the way rather than toppling over as many bags tend to, this stays upright quite nicely. The bag contains within it a tidy little storage sack containing a waterproof cover, I guess just don’t tempt your fate by removing it!
I didn’t need to use the bag’s waist strap on this shoot but found it fairly easy to reverse and clip out the way. I thought the dash of orange on the zips looked aesthetically pretty cool – but on a more practical note, it helps to easily navigate yourself around the bag from the corner of your eye, whilst sizing up the next shot.
The bag’s laptop sleeve is accessible and as a nice touch has a strap to pull the device out. I particularly liked that the accompanying top pocket was a decent size to hold my laptop charger, and other non camera bits. I thought that the positioning of this pocket was good – perched on the top rather than on the back where I feel previous bags have perhaps had a tendency to squash contents.
So if you are looking for a sturdy bag to lug around all your kit this feels like a solid choice from a tried and tested, well-regarded brand.
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VSGO VS-A7E Camera Cleaning Kit
No matter how hard you try to keep your camera clean and out of the rain, sand and mud, it will inevitably get dirty and need some cleaning. Fortunately there are cleaning kits available, such as this one from VSGO. It contains: a tumble air blower, two APS-C sensor cleaning swabs, a full frame sensor cleaning swab, a lens cleaning cloth and a professional lens cleaning pen, all of which can be put into a portable bottle.
There's also another smaller kit available from VSGO, which includes a tumble air blower, either lens cleaning cloths, a professional cleaning pen, and the portable bottle.
RSPB Nature Camera
If you want to find out what’s visiting your garden when you’re not around, the fully waterproof RSPB Nature Camera is simple to set up and use. Our garden is enclosed by a brick wall so a 13cm x 13cm hole cut in the bottom of our side gate is the only access point for small mammals.
I set up the camera here using the strap provided to fix its position, hoping to capture some images of our neighbourhood hedgehogs. After scrolling through lots of pictures of mischievous cats, I was delighted to see a prickly mammal was using this highway. Memory card and 8 x AA batteries are not included.
Reviewed by Jo Price, BBC Wildlife, deputy editor
