Home > Consumer Reviews > Lowepro Nova 5 AW Camera Bag (Gray)

I use this big and durable bag ALL the time for my 35mm SLR equipment including large heavy lenses and battery (lots of AA's) powered film winder. I do mostly outdoor shoots and my equipment is well protected.

I had been using Tamrac LTX bags and when I bought my Rolleiflex, I found a LowePro Nova Mini, which fit it perfectly. I liked the LowePro so much that I got this Nova 5 AW bag. I bought larger than I thought I needed, but it turned out to be just right. I have a camera body, D200, 4 lenses and a flashgun. Couldn't be better. Build quality is superb. It's very well padded. The shoulder strap is wide and comfortable. Excellent buy.

This is one of MANY camera bags I own. From my experience, most photographers own at least a few bags - some are bag freaks like me and own way too many. My reason is simple: I want different bags to handle different events.

The Lowepro Nova 5 AW is a well built, medium-large bag. AW stands for all-weather and this bag is certainly built for most of the weather conditions the average person will find themselves in. Nice zippers backed by snaps or elastic. Well padded everywhere without the padding taking up too much room. The bag itself is semi-rigid, which adds to the protection, plus it will stay open when you have it on your shoulder. The strap is well-padded and adjusts easily and allows for over the shoulder or across the chest - even for big guys like me.

From the front, there's a small zipped pocket in the flap, perfect for booklets or small flat items. It's not padded, so I wouldn't put my cell in there. The flap itself is secured by a snap buckle. Once open, there's a much larger zippered pocket in the front that can hold filters, batteries, memory cards, your cell and some other stuff. This one is padded and has a bunch of neat little pockets and nooks to store your smaller items. Open the heavy-duty zippers securing the top and there's another zipped see-through pocket in the top of lid. The zipper has a little tab of leather over it in the closed position to protect your camera LCD (or anything else) from being scratched. The inside of the bag is large, allowing me to put my 40D plus 24-70/2.8 (hood reversed), 100-400 with ring and hood (reversed), 580EXII in it's pouch, plus my 10-17 and 12-24 stacked. I use hood hats to store them in so they don't bang against one another.

On either side is a stretchy mesh pocket, for pills, cell phones or little gizmos. And in the back is a full size zipped and lightly padded pocket for a book or magazines. There are also belt loops. The strap is backed up by a nicely padded, but somewhat cheap-feeling handle and the strap itself is removable in the event you're storing it or whatever.

The negatives are few and mostly opinion rather than shortcomings. I'd have liked to see some sliplock mounts on the side to hang a lens pouch - that would make this near-perfect for all-round use for me. The above-mentioned handle could be beefed up, but that's just me. Other than that, I can't imagine what more you could want or need in a good weekend sized bag. Highly recommended!

Awesome camera bag. High quality product. Very large. I placed 2 large lenses, SLR with a battery grip/pack & a large lense attached, a large flash unit, 4 batteries & the battery charger in the bag with room to spare. I like the rain cover, although it took me a bit to find it. Very well padded. Lots of small dividers in the bag. The only fault I found with the bag is the lack of a medium sized divider in the bag. I like to leave my battery pack attached to the camera body with a lense attached. That requires more room in the bag. Another divider the width of the bag would have provided the exact space I needed. No big deal, though. I just improvised, but another medium sized divider would have been nice. I also have the Lowepro Nova 4 AW. It, too, needs another divider the size of the width of the bag. Still rates a 5 star!!

The perfect bag for those extra lenses you need to take. High quality bag all through out. Lowepro has always made unique sizes being experts in photography bags. Cannot go wrong with this bag. I put in thre following:
1)10-20 sigma, 20mm sigma, 50mm nikon, 20-120 nikon vr, 18-55 nikon, d80,
and more. There is still room for more!