is this little cleaning instrument called the Lens Pen. Keeps all my lenses nice and clean. I thought I had lost mine and was ready to pull the trigger on a new one, but just found it while rummaging through one of my many camera backpacks — a Lowepro CompuTrekker AW in this case.

The other two backpacks I have are a Lowepro Rover AW II & a Tamrac Adventure 9. Why do I own 3 different photo backpacks? Unfortunately because they all serve a different purpose.

The Rover AW is the one I use the most as the “walk around” backpack. It’s got a lot of space in the upper compartment to hold miscellaneous items like food, a flash, a small book, other nick naks, and even the 70-200 f/2.8 IS. It also looks the least like a camera bag which is a plus.

The CompuTrekker is all business as it is designed to only carry camera gear + a laptop. I normally l use this on trips where I won’t need the versatility of a multi-use backpack like the Rover AW II. I like to carry-on all my camera gear + laptop so this bag works perfectly as it allows me to carry on another personal item if needed (like a carry-on roller luggage with my clothes :) ).

Lastly, I also have a Tamrac Adventure 9. I bought it specifically for my trip to China/Hong Kong earlier this year. I didn’t want to bring a ton of camera gear with me, but I still wanted a multi-use pack that also held a laptop. The Adventure 9 fit my 20D, 17-40 f/4, and 24-105 f/4 IS, my Dell Inspiron 600m, and all the other related camera & laptop accessories and had a tiny bit of room left over.

Incidentally, I also bought the 20D & 24-105 f/4 IS specifically for this trip as well, as my other setup is a brick and a half: 1D MK II & 24-70 f/2.8. It came down to compromises in the end, but my main priority was to pack as light as possible while not crimping my photo-fu too much. In retrospect, it didn’t hamper me at all, except for all the situations that I really needed to shoot 8.5 frames per second while on vacation (not).

But anyways — this series of events (finding the Lens Pen & writing this post) was prompted by me wanting to take photos of the Adventure 9 as I’m finally getting around to posting it up for sale. My 24-70 f/2.8 will likely follow soon after.