Peak Design 7L Outdoor Sling Bag: Ideal for outdoor adventures

With cringeworthy and traumatic memories of the 90s "fanny pack" (AKA "bum-bag"), we were expecting to hate this bag. We certainly didn't anticipate falling in love with it, but alas, we have. It's one of the most comfortable bags we've ever used, to the point where we forget we are wearing it.

Perfect for spontaneous trips or everyday use, it became our go-to "grab and go" camera bag when we only needed to take one or two lenses with us and didn't want to carry a large and cumbersome backpack. Its smaller size prevented us from overpacking, and it's surprisingly roomy — allowing us to fit a variety of equipment combinations inside, suitable for everything from stargazing to wildlife observation.

Peak Design's outdoor bag line isn't specifically dedicated to photography, which is apparent in the materials used and lack of internal dividers and padding, but for outdoor enthusiasts and hikers who want to snap a photo at the top of a mountain or take their favorite pair of binoculars to observe wildlife in the countryside, we think it's fantastic.

Peak Design 7L Outdoor Sling Bag review

Peak Design 7L Outdoor Sling Bag: Design and comfort

• Comfortable to wear
• Material is quite thin and won't provide much protection
• Two elastic cord hook gear loops, key tether and stabilization strap

The Peak Design 7L sling bag is designed to be lightweight and easy to wear, and it features weatherproof Ultralight Terra Shell™ 210D ripstop exterior fabric and super-durable #5 weatherproof UltraZips™ to prevent water intake. It can be worn as a sling bag (and includes a detachable stabilization strap to keep it in place), as a shoulder bag or around the waist.

We wore it in all configurations, with polar opposite reactions. We loved the cross-body configuration, had no strong feelings about wearing it as a shoulder bag, and passionately hated the waist style, particularly for carrying photography gear.

The thick strap provides padding over the shoulder, and because the 7L capacity only allows for a small amount of gear and accessories, it doesn't turn into one of those super-heavy loads that give you backache after five minutes. We did find the zips a little fiddly to use one-handed, though which can quickly get annoying.

Although the material is waterproof, which is a plus, the outer shell is quite thin so it wouldn't offer much protection to your camera or lenses if the bag gets knocked or dropped. However, it's not designed or marketed as a dedicated camera bag, so the thinner material will have been chosen due to its outdoor nature. Still, if you want a bit more padding, the X-Small camera cube will fit inside it to provide more protection and organization.

Another design element that worries us for photographic use is the connection clasp on the strap. We got into the habit of taking the bag off over our head, but the connection clasp is very sensitive and easily triggered, so if you accidentally grab the strap in the wrong place then the clasp will open, resulting in the bag dropping to the floor with all your expensive gear inside. We'd like there to be some kind of safety feature here to prevent this from happening.

Peak Design offers a 2L version in addition to the 7L bag we tested, but we can't imagine photographers finding much use for the 2L capacity. The 7L outdoor sling is only slightly bigger than the 3L Everyday Sling but with more than double the capacity — although the Everyday Sling does have more padding.

The smaller zip pocket on the front of the bag contains the key tether and has room for a few small accessories like batteries, a card holder or a small power bank. The main compartment is much bigger and has three mesh pockets, plus another zip pocket inside that features four smaller mesh pockets. On the back of the bag, there's a discreet magnetic cell phone drop pocket which is incredibly handy for quick access.

We'd have liked to see more in terms of camera/lens organization within the main compartment, rather than just smaller pockets. We suppose this is what the separate camera cubes are for, although, there aren't any anchor points for the cube. However, we think that's still more favorable than having all your gear floating around loose inside the bag — which is one thing we quickly got frustrated with as it messes with the weight distribution.

That said, its primary function is an outdoor bag rather than a camera bag, so it's not surprising that there aren't any internal dividers. We'd also have liked there to be a spot to attach the Peak Design Capture Clip on the strap.

The bag features two elastic cord hook gear loops on the bottom for attaching bulky items — we found the JOBY GorillaPod was the ideal tripod to affix to it, although when we set the bag down it always wanted to fall backward due to the location of the tripod. We tried it with a few Benro tripods but even their smallest models were too big and bulky — perhaps they've designed it this way so that only their super-compact Peak Design travel tripod will be suitable?

Peak Design 7L Outdoor Sling Bag: Practicality

• Better suited to those with smaller or less gear
• Zips are fiddly to use one-handed
• Can fit a surprising number of gear combinations

We tried to fit as many photography-related items into it as we possibly could, and to our surprise, this Mary Poppins-esque bag seemed to have one of Hermione Granger's undetectable extension charms, because we just kept adding things in without running out of room. We actually ran out of equipment before we ran out of pockets.

We fit the following combinations of gear in the bag:

For a photography-based setup, in the main compartment, we could fit the Sony A7R V with the 35mm f/1.8 lens attached, plus the 85mm f/1.8 lens separately, as well as lens filters, a card holder, a portable hand-warmer, a headlamp, two spare batteries, a card reader and a cable, while the front pocket was perfect for a power bank.

We did notice that it became more fiddly to take things in and out of the pockets the more we filled the bag up, so perhaps a "back to front" approach works best.

For a wildlife photography setup, the Sony FE 70-200mm f/2.8 GM OSS II could comfortably fit in the main compartment, but at the cost of removing the camera and any additional lenses. If you're happy to wear your camera around your neck while walking to accommodate one larger lens in the bag, then it'll certainly work for bigger lenses. You might possibly be able to fit a small pair of binoculars on top if wildlife observation is your bag (no pun intended), but you'd be pushing your luck beyond that.

For aerial photography, it also fits our DJI Mini 3 Pro with the controller, battery pack and additional accessories like drone lens filters and a power bank in the front pocket.

With room to spare, this made us wonder if we could fit any camera gear inside the bag alongside the drone.

With some mad Tetris skills, we managed to fit our Sony A7R V and FE 35mm f1.8 lens in alongside the DJI drone equipment, but only just — and we had to separate the lens from the camera. The front pocket had enough room for a power bank, drone filters, cardholder and spare camera batteries. There was some room at the top of the bag, but we'd be reluctant to put anything delicate there — if anything, we'd want to add some gloves or something soft to add a bit of protection. Needless to say, the bag was getting quite heavy at this point.

We think there's an element of "just because you can, doesn't mean you should" here. Just because it technically can fit all this gear inside, the lack of padding makes us nervous to actually take it out with all that expensive and breakable equipment inside. Plus, we don't love the idea of all our gear clunking around inside the bag while we walk.

You'd think that adding a camera cube would help with the organization, and although it certainly adds protection to your gear, somehow, we found it reduced the overall capacity, and we could only fit a camera with one lens inside the bag when the X-Small camera cube was installed. Users have noted that the cube has a bit of an odd fit inside the sling bag, but we thought it was fine overall — although we did note an inch or-so wiggle-room either side.

That said, we think the X-Small camera cube would be more useful if you're going out on a shoot where you'll be using the camera most of the time (say, during a portrait shoot or photographing scenery during a walk), and you want to have a couple of easily accessible extra lenses on you that you can quickly grab as needed.

Verdict

As an outdoor bag that can double as a photography bag, it works well, but we wouldn't use it as a dedicated camera backpack to hold all our gear or take a full-size tripod. We used it a lot for spontaneous stargazing trips when we would be shooting astrophotography at the side of the road and didn't have to move away from the car, but it's not suitable for transporting lots of gear.

It would be fantastic for taking on your travels or daily commute when you don't want to carry a heavy backpack around all day, or for those trips where you want to take a camera along just in case. For hikers who want to take a compact camera to capture the view at the top of a mountain, it would be great.

As a dedicated camera bag, we'd give it 3.5 out of 5 stars, and as a general outdoor bag, we'd award it 4.5. out of 5 stars, so we've settled on an average of 4 out of 5 stars.

Our reviewer and photographer, Kimberley Lane, said: "I was fully expecting to hate this bag, but instead, I will tell anyone who will listen how much I love it. I actually prefer it to my full-size Peak Design Outdoor Backpack because it's so lightweight and easy to wear. I'll start to complain after a while (read: five minutes) if my bag is too heavy, so having a smaller bag prevents me from overpacking and ensures I only take the things I need."

If the Peak Design 7L Outdoor Sling Bag isn't for you

If the Peak Design 7L Outdoor Sling Bag hasn't quite hit the mark, whether you want something bigger or with more padding, here are a few alternative bags to consider instead.

How we tested the Peak Design 7L Outdoor Sling Bag

To test the Peak Design 7L Outdoor Sling Bag, we conducted a series of controlled tests in real-world scenarios focusing on capacity, comfort, durability and accessibility.

We loaded the bag with a standard set of items for multiple uses, including photography, drone use and wildlife observation, measuring the weight distribution and ease of access in each compartment.

We assessed the comfort by wearing the bag for extended periods in both cross-body and waist-style while tracking its pressure points and strap adjustments. We tested the zipper efficiency by noting how quickly we could access each compartment while the bag was being worn.

We also exposed the bag to various environments including light rain and sandy beaches, observing the material wear and water resistance.