Camera Armour Seattle Solo Dry Bag Review

By Rob Spray, April 2009

Now here’s a good idea. If you’re out on a boat or even in the rain – though fresh water doesn’t hurt – you can never be sure your kit is safe when it’s piled up in the cabin or parked with an aged relative while you’re doing something cool. I have a sailing dry bag for vital supplies on board a boat, but I have to use a bobble hat to pad my camera and keep it safe, plus the bag is shapeless to boot, which ensures the seasick pills, car keys and goodness knows what else swirl around like a lucky dip..

The Camera Armor Seattle Solo on the other hand does the job properly, it takes what I wanted my homemade mixture of woolly hat and cheap PVC to do but with style.

It's a smart looking bag, reflective strips make it easy to find

Look at me, I’m waterproof!

It’s not a subtle bag for walking around town; from the proud, chunky rubber Camera Armor (sic) logo to the reflective strip around the top this is an action bag for the kind of folk who aren’t worried so much by street crime as finding their camera downstream after rolling a canoe. The exterior is constructed from ‘Ballistic nylon and waterproof rubber’ which manages to sound both military and slightly like a fetish. The rubbery outer forms a wipe clean shell around the removable dry bag which fits inside.

If you aren’t familiar with dry bags then the principle is actually very simple. A waterproof sack has an opening which is reinforced and flat which is rolled over several times to form such a convoluted seal that water can’t be bothered to get in. The sealed top of the bag is clipped down so it can’t unroll. In this case the clips also lock the dry bag to the outer shell so the two can’t be separated by ‘incidents’. This obviously traps air inside too which, as it can’t escape, also resists any water which tries to sneak in. This isn’t the kind of seal which works at depth but on the surface this bag won’t take in water – and it’s also very buoyant. You’d have to drag it down to put your gear at risk!

You can soak it as much as you like

Unlike my sailing dry bag the waterproof element of the Seattle Solo is made of very tough nylon laminate – the kind of thing which offshore protection suits are made of – as opposed to PVC. This makes it much more resistant to abrasion and really hard to hole. The edges of the material are heat sealed and protected against fraying.

My old boring dry bag is now repaired with gaffer tape since one of the clips came away as the heat bonding to the PVC wasn’t very strong – you can put quite a lot of strain on the rollover neck. That won’t happen with the Camera Armor Seattle Solo. As an indication of the attention to detail put into this bag, the neck is reinforced with 20mm wide nylon webbing which is sewn on and secures the Fastex type clips at either end. The shaped outer also prevents overloading and keeps the securing straps in line so there’s minimum stress on them.

The front pocket is 'wetside', with mesh sides so it drains

Your name’s not down, you’re not coming in…

The inner section is the only part of the bag which is actually waterproof, the velcro lid has a mesh pocket for small items which would be sheltered from rain – although the protection would be better if the lid had edges which hung over the sides a little. The exterior pocket is mesh sided so just a secure place to put items which can cope with being wet… speedos, Mars bars or backup waterproof camera (all action types have them… don’t they?).

Anything delicate has to go inside, it’s an SLR shaped bag so that’s an SLR and the only serious whinge is that there are no dividers or partitions to allow that camera to neatly share the inner sanctum with other bits and pieces… so I’m back to wrapping them in a woolly hat or spare pants. That said the space is well shaped and a great fit for my E3 and a middle sized zoom – such as the 12-60mm. The space is generous for a small SLR with kit lens. The outer provides the shape and is well padded, protecting your baby against knocks and the waterproof core from wear and tear.

It's easy; pack, roll, clip, soak!

Conclusion

The Seattle Solo is a good idea done well. Quite aside from being camera shaped it answers a lot of my criticisms of normal dry bags, by adding shape and protection it is a complete solution rather than just a waterproof sack you have to protect.

As always with protective gear the dilemma is judging how much protection you need while still actually using your camera. The Camera Armor Seattle Solo is actually a good balance for most damp applications. If your gear is normal, barely safe in a rain shower, then the Seattle Solo can keep it totally dry until the weather breaks or you are back on land. The rolled neck sheds surface water away from the opening. If your camera can take a soaking but not submersion then you can rely on it to protect your snowy, wet camera from shocks and immersion as you canoe or wade down river – perhaps that’s the time you’d revert to the fully waterproof compact in the outer pocket.

Some basic testing suggests you simply won’t encounter enough weather on land to breach it and it’s the perfect cure for the risk of falling while crossing a river, or carrying a camera during white water rafting. The only real criticism, that the bag has no divisions, is more a function of the way dry bags work than this single SLR model particularly and the next model up includes a full frame of soft dividers, since it’s big enough to demand them; the Camera Armor Seattle Sling.

The proof of the pudding - one dry SLR!

Pros: Tough, waterproof, quality construction, buoyant
Cons: Can’t spell armour properly, no dividers inside, could have a waist strap

Ratings

Overall score:

An excellent dry bag, not so convenient on dry days.

View the Camera Armor Seattle Solo Bag at Warehouse Express