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Travelling with the Manfrotto Pro Light Reloader-55

As a professional travel, landscape and garden photographer one of my main concerns when travelling is safely getting all my photography equipment from A to B, especially on flights. My new Manfrotto Prolight Reloader-55 roller bag has finally allayed this concern. This roller bag is well designed, a sturdy construction with rigid sides and has been designed to meet most airlines carry-on luggage size limits.

Manfrotto pro light reloader 55 camera travel and location bag Stephen Studd photography

This was my camera bag of choice for a recent 6 week photographic trip to South East Asia, where I also run travel photography tours. The photograph below was taken on Lake Inle one of my favourite locations in the world for photography. I am working on a series of black and white images from Myanmar. For these I shoot in RAW format in colour and convert them to black and white in Lightroom. My blog shows how I use this process and can be found here.

Manfrotto prolight reloader 55 camera travel and location bag Stephen Studd photography Burma Myanmar Travel photography holidays vacations tours

The camera bags internal compartment has plenty of room to put in lots of equipment inside with it’s versatile design.

Manfrotto pro light reloader 55 camera travel and location bag Stephen Studd photography

There is strong removable padding inside to fit many different combinations of photographic equipment and accessories. In the photo above there is a Canon 5d Mark III camera body with 70-300mm lens and a Canon 6D with 100-400mm lens attached. Extra lenses Canon 24-70mm, 17-24mm and 70-200mm. Also inside a portable external hard drive (I also carry an extra back up one with me on my person), cable for my laptop, 2 remote camera releases, spare batteries and tucked inside one of the compartments is a rain cover that the bag comes with.

Inside the lid of the bag are five zipped pockets to put in spare memory cards, filters, leads, passport, spare phone etc. Two handy straps either side of the lid connect to the bag and keep the lid open when in use, these can also be detached if you want the lid to open to the floor.

Manfrotto pro light reloader 55 camera travel and location bag Stephen Studd photography

On the front of the camera bag is a padded pouch that fits in my laptop and there is also a padded pouch for a tablet.

Manfrotto pro light reloader 55 camera travel and location bag Stephen Studd photography

The Reloader-55 has a retractable handle which works smoothly and easily locks up or down. The bag is easy to wheel through airports, stations, city streets and in hotels, and the wheels can even be replaced over time. There are also 2 carrying handles, one on the top and another on the side making it easy to carry and lift. The outside of the bag is made with a water repellant rip stop nylon to keep the contents dry.

Manfrotto pro light reloader 55 camera travel and location bag Stephen Studd photography

Thanks to the TSA approved combination zip lock on the bag, my photography gear was safe inside  both on board the flights and most importantly in my hotel rooms.

Manfrotto pro light reloader 55 camera travel and location bag Stephen Studd photography

With the Prolight Reloader-55, I took eight flights including two twin prop planes in Myanmar with no problems.

Manfrotto pro light reloader 55 camera travel and location bag Stephen Studd photography

Even with the smaller than usual overhead cabin baggage lockers the bag fitted in.

Manfrotto pro light reloader 55 camera travel and location bag Stephen Studd photography

On this recent travel photography trip I could pack in lots of kit inside the bag and even have room to spare. A major plus for this camera bag is the combination lock as added security for my valuable camera gear, especially when it is left in hotel rooms.

The Reloader-55 camera bag will be accompanying me on many trips in the future as it is extreemly well designed, very sturdy, easy to wheel around and transported my photography equipment and laptop safely and securely to every location that I visited.

Manfrotto pro light reloader 55 camera travel and location bag Stephen Studd photography Burma Myanmar travel photography tours holidays vacations

Stephen StuddOther articles by author

Stephen Studd is an award winning professional travel and garden photographer. His photography is published regularly around the world for over 25 years, from front cover of National Geographic magazine, to countless other magazines, books, brochures and digital media.

Stephen recently founded Digital Photography Holidays, leading small groups to his favourite places on the planet, more information can be found here: http://www.digitalphotographyholidays.com

Stephen also shoots commissioned photography assignments and stock.

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