what’s in my tech travel backpack Featured

What’s In My Tech Travel Backpack (CES 2019)

Dan Barbera

Jan 6, 2019 • 5 min read

Video Transcript Below:

Hey guys, Dan here and in this video, I am going to show you yet again all of the tech and camera gear that I am bringing with me to CES 2019.

So in years past, I always end up bringing a bunch of camera gear and a bunch of bags and ever year I basically make a New Years resolution that I am only going to bring the important stuff but when it comes time to pack everything up, I panic and bring as much as I possibly can. Well this year, I am hoping to change that. Thats largely going to be because of this new bag from Peak Design, which is called the travel backpack. So this is a monstrous 45L backpack that has a few tricks up its sleeve that can help me bring all of my tech and gear that I am going to need when editing videos are filming on the showroom floor.

When I usually head out to ces, I would bring my backpack filled with personal stuff and another carry on thats made to carry camera gear but thankfully, with this bag, I won’t need to do that and thats because the Travel Backpack is so big but utilizes packing cubes In order to help separate your stuff. We will get into more of that in a minute but as far as the bag itself goes, it has a very familiar design if you have ever seen or used a Peak Design bag in the past. I made a video a few years back on the everyday backpack from Peak Designs and absolutely loved it. The same type of handcrafted quality and craftsmanship is really on display with the travel backpack and its still a very comfortable fit, even with 45L worth of stuff jammed into it. There are tons of straps to secure various items like tripods to your backpack for hands free travel, and to also help evenly distribute the weight across your back and shoulders.

The front of this bag has a small zippered compartment at the top, which is perfect for maybe your car keys, wallet, phone, or passport. The next zippered area is where I will probably store a lot of personal tech items that I might need to access quickly and dont want to store in a packing cube. Again, the organization potential is clutch here as there are tons of zippered compartments and pockets that can help you keep things tidy and clean.

Finally, the big compartment in this bag is where you can fit most of your stuff. You could use this to store clothes or books but in this case, were going to use the packing cubes that I have for this bag and we will go through exactly what I am taking to CES. Theres also a compartment for your laptop here which perfectly fits my 2018 15” MacBook Pro.

Alright, moving on to the main part of the show and thats the packing cubes and more importantly, the stuff inside of them. There are a ton of different combinations and options to choose from on their website but the configuration that I am going with for CES is one Camera Cube and one tech pouch.

The camera cube is modular and massive, but not too big to the point where I might try to bring things I do not need. The gear that ill be bringing with me to the show is my Sony A7iii with my Tamron 28-75mm f.28 lens, which is a fantastic piece of glass for the price point and my Zeiss Batis 85MM lens which is also an amazing lens but of course is a lot more expensive given the Zeiss name and all. These two lenses are all that I really need but I might throw in a 10-18 if I need something really wide will on the showfloor. Ill also need some audio gear and so for any on camera A roll shots, ill have my Rode Lav Mics that I have had and use almost daily for a few years now and the same goes for the rode NT USB microphone that I use for all of my voice overs while traveling. I am also planning to throw my smallHD focus monitor in the cube so that I can get a better look at the products ill be filming since the screen on these cameras are pretty small.

Aside from batteries and a few smaller accessories, thats going to be all of the gear that I will be bringing with me to the show and it all fits comfortably inside of the cube. Well all of this and my manfrotto befree travel tripod that will most likely be attached to the front of the bag.

The tech pouch is perfect for carrying all of cables and dongles that ill need as well as my hard drives. This year, I plan on bringing the LaCie Rugged Pro, which is where ill store a lot of my footage for archiving and it also acts as an SD card reader, which is pretty great. The drive that ill be editing off of is this new LaCie 2TB SSD, which not only looks super cool but its also blazing fast. Perfect for editing projects on the go. Its also super tiny and light. I cant recommend this drive enough. Ill also throw some Apple Watch bands for my series 4, which is one of my favorite tech items from 2018 and ill also carry these AirPods with me that have this sweet leather case from Nomad on them.

Finally, my last big ticket tech items that I must have with me are my Sony wh1000xm3 headphones, which if you haven’t already seen my review on these guys, please go check out the link in the description. Spoiler alert, these headphones are amazing. Ill also have my 2018 iPad Pro, this is the larger 12.9 with the keyboard folio and Apple Pencil. I have been using my iPad Pro for basically anything thats not video editing and I absolutely love it. Last but not least, this is the previously mentioned 2018 MacBook Pro and its going to be the computer of choice when editing these videos.

Oh yeah, before I forget, ill also be carrying the Google Pixel 3XL and the iPhone XS Max on this trip because I always have one android and one iOS and these are my personal favorites as of right now.

The Peak Design Travel Backpack is a really nice backpack and I cant wait to put it through its first real trip and test. One thing I want to mention, is that all of the stuff in the bag, especially the camera cube, is easily accessible when shooting due to the same side zippers found on each side of the bag. I can unzip and access the main compartment, and the storage cubes quickly and easily. Love that feature.

Let me know what you think of this bag in the comments down below and be sure to follow me on twitter and if youre interested in seeing my CES 2019 coverage, ill be doing so over on the MacRumors YouTube channel, so be sure to subscribe to them if you haven’t already. Thanks for watching guys and I will see you in the next one.

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