Review of the Hadley Pro bag from Billingham

Like many photographers I love bags. Why do we have a tendency to collect them over the years? I think it may be because we are so passionate about our photography that we want to take our art to as many places as we can and therefore each opportunity comes with its own challenges and requirements. From the amount of gear we need (number of lenses and camera body) to the type of traveling that is required (flight, walking in the streets or hike a hill for hours). While our camera bags must be functional their looks should not be ignored. Strangely the latter is what caught my eye at the last Photography Show in Birmingham. Here there was a collection of outstandingly good looking bags which pulled me aside to know more. The brand: Billingham After speaking with their sales and marketing staff for about 45min, I was really hooked, I needed to test the bag. So they kindly sent me the Hadley pro version and as I writing this article, I have been using it for 4 months. Watch the video above for my review.

Here are a few things to know about their bags

At the time of this article, Billingham have 11 different bag series! This is huge and means there is undeniably one for everyone’s need:

• Rucksacks: The backpack.
• S Series: The new shoulder bag for mirrorless and small form factor gear.
• Eventer: One of their first bags, a Swiss-army-knife type of bag.
• 550: Their first production bag and one of their largest (21.5L)
• Hadley Series: See below
• 5 Series: Their flagship bag with uncompromising features
• 7 Series: The FibreNyte bag
• Packington: 1 single bag but very versatile
• fStop Series: The Compact bag with nice feature
• L2: Simplicity is the word here
• Stowaways: The hand bag.

 

The Hadley Series

5 differents models/sizes:

Hadley Digital

External Dimensions: W210mm (8¼”) x D130mm (5⅛”) x H210mm (8¼”) Internal Dimensions: W180mm (7⅛”) x D100mm (4″) x H170mm (6¾”) Capacity: 2.50 litres Weight: 0.47 kgs (1.04 lbs)

Hadley Small

External Dimensions: W290mm (11½”) x D120mm (4¾”) x H220mm (8⅝”) Internal Dimensions: W260mm (10¼”) x D80mm (3⅛”) x H190mm (7½”) Capacity: 3.50 litres Weight: 0.70 kgs (1.54 lbs)

Hadley Pro

External Dimensions: W350mm (13¾”) x D120mm (4¾”) x H280mm (11″) Internal Dimensions: W340mm (13⅜”) x D80mm (3⅛”) x H270mm (10⅝”) Capacity: 6.00 litres Weight: 1.01 kgs (2.23 lbs)

Hadley Large

External Dimensions: W380mm (15″) x D140mm (5½”) x H310mm (12¼”) Internal Dimensions: W370mm (14⅝”) x D85mm (3⅜”) x H300mm (11⅞”) Capacity: 8.00 litres Weight: 0.97 kgs (2.14 lbs)

Hadley Large Pro

External Dimensions: W440mm (17¼”) x D180mm (7⅛”) x H320mm (12⅝”) (excluding handle) Internal Dimensions: W400mm (15¾”) x D135mm (5⅜”) x H310mm (12¼”) Capacity: 13 litres Weight: 1.64 kgs (3.62 lbs)

The colours

Don’t be put down by the kaki colour of the bag i have reviewed here. There are 14 different colour combination for the Hadley. I chose the one i thought would be the most fragile to stain.

The fabrics

The bag i reviewed was made of this new fabric called FibreNyte but you can choose the standard canvas material, though. FibreNyte is a new high performance, super durable fabric which is bonded to a polyester lining using Billingham StormBlock butyl rubber and weighs 10% less than traditional canvas.

The 5-year warranty

On all their bags they offer a 5-year warranty which really shows how much they are confident in their bags durability. You could send you bag to them for repair even beyond the 5 years but they will charge you for the work as expected.