Photo Bag Reviews

One of the most important parts of personalizing a camera bag or photo backpack is organizing the removable partitions so that the gear fits snugly and safely but is still easy to fetch. Sadly, that experience is often a freakish nightmare instead of being the OCD paradise it has the potential of being.

If you’ve been involved with photography for more than a week you know what it’s like to wrestle with those padded dividers that snag and cling to the plush lining of the bag by means of what’s invariably either the world’s strongest Velcro or the world’s wimpiest hook-and-loop Velcro knockoff.

It’s real work to move those separators around—am I right? And when you finish scratching your knuckles raw on the rough hooks you realize that you didn’t leave enough room for the camera body to fit. So you rip everything out and start all over again.

Thanks to TrekPak, those days are gone forever.TrekPak is a system of rigid padded dividers that can be configured securely into virtually any shape and locked into place until you feel the urge to change it. The secret is in the construction—a series of parallel tubes sandwiched between layers of protective foam. This is a gross oversimplification of a truly ingenious design.

Individual sections can be trimmed using a clever tool that rides one tube as a guide for a perfect cut every time. Corners and end pieces are fastened together by means of long, u-shaped hooks that can optionally be outfitted with a pull-tabs for easy removal and reuse. This video shows you how.For backpacks and other shapes that are not rectangular, TrekPak offers the Rollipak. It’s similar to the flat sections except it’s hinged and flexible. Frankly, I found the Rolli to be the most fun to install and most useable overall.

But the arena in which TrekPak really shines is the hard-shell, suitcase-type cases made by Pelican, Nanuk, SKB, IM Storm and HPRC. TrekPak offers semi-configured insert systems for several models of all of those brands plus Pelican Elite Luggage. All include a precise one-piece or two-piece perimeter strip that drops in like custom floor mats in a Lamborghini.

The preconfigured kit for a Pelican 1150, for example, consists of a custom perimeter strip (which fits perfectly), one 15-inch divider strip, a cutter tool, ten pins with flags and exact-fitting foam for the bottom and top of the case. All this for $35. Try this once and you’ll never go back to diced foam.

—Jon Sienkiewicz