Chile/Antartica

I am traveling to Patagonia and then on to the Antartica peninsula. I will be taking two Sony a7RII bodies and three lens: Sony 16-35 f4, Sony 24-105 f4 and the Sony 70-200 f4. The travel from the ship to the peninsula on Zodiacs can get very wet and the weather can change very quickly. I do have dry bags that will hold the gear and ziplock bags for going from cold to warm to reduce condensation.

 

The puzzle I am trying to solve is a day travel bag to take on shore that has the following features:

1. Hold the two Sony bodies with at least the 24-105 and the 70-200 lens attached

2. Easy access to the bodies/lens without putting the bag on the ground so i can take them out or put them away relatively quickly

3. Enough space to store an extra layer of clothing and extra gloves as well as extra batteries and cards

4. Built in rain cover

 

Regular backpacks can solve 1, 3, and 4, but fail for #2.

 

Any suggestions would be appreciated

Something like the Tenba PD 17

meets your criteria, but there are other criteria that become important:

• must weigh less than a small elephant
  
• must have dimensions withing airline limits
  

 

I use mine for the primary task of getting to the location, but much of the time download the day's equipment to a smaller bag. By judicious squeezing the PD-17 even fits into some airline limits, but it is very heavy and best suited for shooting from a base like a bus or other vehicle.

Might look at Think Tank bags. I think they even have a special polar bag that also keeps your balls toasty.

So I thought I would give a follow up. I ended up purchasing the Mindshift Ultralight Dual 36L bag and took it on a 5 day drive trip on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Did a modest amount of hiking with it. In essence it is a backpack divided into an upper and lower chamber. In the lower chamber cameras with lens attached can be stored and the upper chamber is for anything else you want. I have written a small blog on it:

UltraLight Dual 36L Mindshift Bag | Steven Seelig - Chicago Photographer

 

I found this to be a remarkably functional and versatile bag.

 

One thing I would like to have is the ability hook the camera I am removing from the lower compartment onto the shoulder straps quickly.