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Clik Elite Seeker 10
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Clik Elite Seeker 10. (26.990oz./765.1g, about $90). enlarge. This free website's biggest source of support is when you use these links, especially this link directly to it at Adorama when you get anything. Thank you! Ken.
November 2010 Nikon Reviews Canon LEICA Pentax
Review top
The Clik Elite Seeker 10 is very different from conventional camera bags. The Clik Elite Seeker 10 feels and looks like a big running shoe. It is very light, very well padded, offers just the right level of support, and breathes well.
The Clik Elite Seeker 10 is ideal for carrying cameras when you're running, hiking, cycling or climbing. It offers more physical protection from every angle than a normal bag in case you slip or crash, and it's designed to fit to your body and allow it to breathe and move easily.
As seen from the top, it's more trapezoidal than other bags, so if you're rounding corners close to branches, you're less likely to snag them on the bag behind you.
Back, Clik Elite Seeker 10. enlarge.
See all this mesh? It breathes.
See the orange center? That's a recessed corrugated sheet that isolates your cameras from your back, with plenty of airspace between you and the rest of the bag. The area between the orange corrugated plastic and the black mesh is a plenum from which air flows via the four vents around the white pads. As you run, air moves, and keeps you cool.
The Clik Elite Seeker 10 is also designed to keep your camera stable as you run, so it won't beat a hole in your side after you've been moving all day. The big pads, just like the bottom of a running shoe, hold everything steady with motion. Unlike traditional bags, you won't feel your cameras and lenses resting against you.
If I'm running to the summit of Mount Whitney and back in one day, this is the bag. Conventional bags like the Think Tank Speed Demon, at 35.540 oz (1,007.5g), weigh more, and aren't designed for strenuous physical activity on the part of the photographer.
The Clik Elite Seeker 10 feels more like a big running shoe than a conventional bag designed for static photography. The Clik Elite Seeker 10 is much lighter and has much more padding than a conventional bag. Heck, its colors and materials even look like a running shoe!
The penalty we pay with the Clik Elite Seeker 10, in exchange for super light-weight and extreme padding and camera motion control for active sports, is that it takes a few more steps to get into the bag and at our cameras than with a conventional bag.
Top view, Clik Elite Seeker 10. enlarge.
The Clik Elite Seeker 10 has no rain cover, but in over 25 years of using bags that come with these covers, I've never used one. What I would like is a bag more resistant to dirt, and lo and behold, the main zipper is behind a small dust flap. Yay!
The zippers are smaller than conventional bags, which mean they don't pull as fast or as smoothly, and they also save weight. There are very nice pulls on the little zippers, but they are still little zippers that don't slide as well as larger ones.
The straps stay tight when tightened. They use a leveraged block and tackle design.
The center lift handle is dainty. It works, and saves weight compared to the larger handles of conventional bags.
To open the Clik Elite Seeker 10, grab a bright red zipper pull (I tucked them into the flap for the photo; they are usually very obvious), and open the main compartment.
Top view, Clik Elite Seeker 10. enlarge.
When unzipped, you see the padded protective section for your gear.
It closes over your gear with two big velcro straps, one on each side. All of the protective section is made of girl velcro (the fuzzy stuff), and the boy velcro is on the inner straps.
I left it open a little; it usually wraps everything up tight, so no matter from what direction you get hit, your gear is protected.
Open view, Clik Elite Seeker 10 and Minolta SR-1. enlarge.
Here's what you'll see after you open the inner section. Now you can get your well-protected gear, but it takes both opening a zipper and then opening the inner section.
It's easy to get in and out of the front pouch; just zip its zipper.
The straps are very soft, flexible and supple. They are not the big, fat seatbelt straps of conventional bags.
It's very comfortable to wear. The thin straps make it easy to bend forwards with the bag on my back.
The locks are also much smaller and lighter than conventional bags.
The little locks are more difficult to latch behind you, but easy to release.
Specifications top
Layout
It holds an SLR (with lens pointed down) in the middle, and a lens on each side. Obviously, if a big camera is sitting on top, you can't get to the lenses in the side pockets.
The top of each divider has a wing which folds over the top of each lens.
The core camera-carrying area is well padded, and it wraps around and velcros solidly your gear.
The padded camera section lies inside a slightly larger nylon overcover, which is secured by a zipper. You may be able to cram a little extra between the outside of the camera section and the inside of the overcover, depending on the size of your cameras.
There is a slim front pocket with dividers. It easily holds a pocket camera like a Canon S95.
The front pocket is only anchored at top and bottom so it floats on top of the bag. You can pull a jacket through the hole between the front pocket and the rest of the bag.
The front pocket easy to zip and unzip with one hand while around your waist.
Compression straps on both sides let you snug this all down securely. They can hold more clothes, and they also get in the way of getting into the main section.
There are no side pockets, either inside or outside, for film or other accessories.
Capacity
It holds a normal SLR and two normal lenses.
If you really push it, you can cram in a pro SLR like an F5 or a D3, but its prism and flash shoe might poke out of the padding a bit.
Getting stupid, I was able to cram-in a Nikon F5 (same as a D3) with 24-70mm f/2.8, a Nikon 24mm f/1.4 on the left and a Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 on the right, but it was tight. It was tight and it was safe and secure, but a bear to get in and out.
A D300 with 35/1.8 (hood reversed), 70-300mm VR and 10-24mm fit snugly. The 70-300mm VR is about as big a lens as you dare use in this bag, and only one lens this long at a time.
You can't hold two long lenses with a body in the center, because the body's hand grip takes up space from the lens on the right. Thus you can't get both a 70-300mm VR on one side and the long 16-35mm VR on the other (the Nikon 17-35mm f/2.8 is an inch shorter physically than the 16-35mm).
With smaller cameras, things work even better.
Weight
26.990oz. (765.1g), measured.
Made in
The Philippines.
Designer
Bryce, the owner of the company, who's been designing outdoor packs for 25 years.
Recommendations top
The Clik Elite Seeker 10 is significantly lighter and better padded than anything else I've ever seen.
The Clik Elite Seeker 10 is perfect for participating in active sports while carrying a real camera, as opposed to passively watching others play those sports.
The Clik Elite Seeker 10 is less well suited as a bag out of which you can shoot, since it takes more steps to get in and out each time.
The Clik Elite Seeker 10 is perfect for getting your gear to where you're going, when you're running over any sort of rugged terrain.
If you're very active or carrying gear over long distances, this is a marvelous bag. If you're not running and want a bag out of which it's easier to shoot, the conventional Think Tank Speed Demon offers better, faster access, but if you're covering a lot of ground, want light weight and lots of protection, the Clik Elite Seeker is best.
Velcro note
I'm using the word velcro, in lower case, as a bastardization of a trademark, writing as a private individual, to save me from having to type "hook-and-loop fastener" each time instead. Velcro is a trademark of just one brand of this stuff, and I don't see Clik Elite saying "Velcro" anywhere, so I suspect this bag doesn't use the Velcro brand. Whoever owns the Velcro trademark would have a cow if any organization used their trademark to represent anything which is not really Velcro, but I can write what I want as an individual. Real Velcro is grown in large fields in Hungary.
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Ken
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