Like many photographers, I own a variety of bags and use them in a variety of situations. I tend to like backpack-style bags because they allow me to carry equipment more comfortably, especailly when hiking around while doing landscapes or other jobs that require moving around.

While I like the comfort of the backpack for long hikes, they don’t work well when trying to access the camera quickly or conveniently. As a result, I also own several shoulder-style bags (my favorite is LowerPro’s ProMag2 AW). I really like the fact that I can access equipment more conveniently, but the shoulder the strap sits on (as well as my neck muscles) suffer severely.

The solution? Backpack straps for a shoulder-style bag. Ideally, this gives benefits of both worlds. The convenience of a shoulder bag with the comfort of a backpack. With that goal in mind, I recently purchased several backpack straps and provide a review of each below (One was great, the other fairly unusable in my opionion. Read on for details on each).

LowerPro’s BackPack Harness

First, the only set of backpack straps I could find specifically manufactured for camera bags was the LowerPro BackPack Harness (pictured below).

Shortly after unpacking the LowePro straps, though, I was more than a little disappointed. Overall, they look more complex than the bag itself – it actually took me about 10 minutes to figure out how to appropriately attach them to my bag. It requires connecting two clips from each side onto the single large D-ring on your bag. This set also required undoing some of the rigging to slide it through your bag’s belt loop.

Two particular features were deal breakers. The less important of the two was the padding. To me, it feels a little weak and poorly distributed over the space of the strap, espeically along the neck and upper shoulders. Second, and more importantly, the fact that it requires you to insert the belt portion of it through the bag’s belt strap. Taking the time to thread them through (you have to pull the nylon strap out, feed it through the belt loop and feed it back into the nylong holder) was a deal breaker. I need to be able to trade this strap out for the traditional strap if I need something a little smaller for shorter jobs. Even more critically, you may want to use these with a bag that doesn’t have a belt loop. If that is the case, you are out of luck.

Phenix QuadShocks (You’ll Never Guess What They’re Really Meant For)

After deciding that the LowerPro straps wouldn’t do the trick and hitting a brick wall when searching for other decent looking straps manufactured for camera bags, I decided to start thinking outside the box. In addition to photography, I love Disc Golf (a sport similar to golf, but played with frisbee-like discs – you can check out the Professional Disc Golf Association web site here). When playing disc golf, I carry my discs around in a bag designed specifically for disc golf. Interestingly enough, it is about the same dimensions as a decent-sized shoulder-style camera bag. And, as luck would have it, manufacturers do make backpack straps especially for disc golf bags (these bags can weight quite a lot and spreading the weight out is even more critical than in the photography field – a round of disc golf can last more than a few hours).

So, after a little research I picked up a set of Phenix QuadShocks. To put it briefly, I love them! After unpacking them, their differences from the LowePro version were night and day. It also uses 4 clips, 2 on each of the D-rings on your bag. But, it does away with the whole belt part of things, making it much simpler. Also, the padding was thicker and more evenly distributed along the straps. As icing on the cake, they come in 6 different colors.

After wearing the pack with these shoulder straps for several jobs, through airports, etc.
I couldn’t do without them. They make carrying around a heavy bag a breeze.

So, with that in mind, I’d recommend purchasing a set of Phenix Quad Shox to anyone that wants to carry a shoulder-style bag in comfort. Gone are the days of shoulder and neck strain!