Little Billingham 'Hadley Original' Review

[martin s]

Many of you seem to like this bag, so I bought one a few weeks ago. I've been using it a lot to carry all kinds of stuff and thought I'd share a few thoughts.

It's somewhat hard to obtain, so I went with the brownish Hadley Original since that's the only reasonably priced one they had in the store I bought it in. Billingham doesn't want to ship to Germany either.

It's really well made, no lose seams or anything. It's about the size of a Magazine, and fits those nicely. It comes with a dark green inlay and 2 larger and two small separators. The inlay can be attached with a button and fits well. Kind of tough to get out. The bag is really soft (as in grocery-plastic-bag-soft) and so is the inlay, together though, they're just tough enough to snug around you while riding a bicycle.

The front pockets aren't separated in itself but way larger than you might think they are. There are buttons involved, too, but that's kind of hard to describe. The leather mechanism to close the bag works well, you can open and close the bag one handed without looking.

In the main compartment I carry:

• M body
• additional lens
• 1-2 paperbacks
• paperback sized notebook
• Ipod
• cellphone
• normal sized magazine outside of / behind the pouch

and in the front pockets

• about 10 films
• light meter
• 2-3 pens
• wallet
• swiss knife
• keys

But you could replace the magazine with a laptop (13"), you can even carry both plus another M body with a lens, but that's really, really tight. Too tight to be usable.

Also, even though the bag is well balanced and nice to carry - carrying a laptop and a camera can be a pain with the small surface the strap offers.

You can get a leather strap though (somewhere around 30 Euros), which I'd say get with the bag. Makes the bag so much more comfortable and is sticky enough to carry the bag lose on one shoulder.

Now what bugs me the most, the brownish color is always dirty - and I'm careful. There are spots every time I check (I stopped by now), and they're really hard to clean compared to for example Crumpler bags. I'd say get the black one with brown leather, looks nice and is probably not as difficult to keep clean.

All in all, a great bag I'd definitely buy again. A joy to use and a nice contrast to more modern looking camera bags. The size is just about perfect for what I carry every day, if I wouldn't have other, larger bags to supplement the bag with though I'd get the Hadley Large. I would have appreciated some separation for pens and maybe some small zipper to put stuff like batteries in. That's the price you pay for having a 'simple' bag.

Sorry for not supplying pictures (sad, really, on a photography website) I just don't have a digital camera at the moment.

martin

 

[martin s]

I finally got around to borrowing my sisters digital camera, a few photos as requested by a fellow rff member.

 

[martin s]

A few more. The third one with laptop. Cameras are in the small compartments on the right, pointing downwards (in the picture, obviously horizontal to the ground)

 

[mike kim]

Perfect! Thanks for the review and the pictures. Do you feel it's too stiff to mold into your body? I'm still trying to decide between tan and black...

 

[martin s]

It's just the right kind of stiff for my taste. Absolutely go with black if you care about a clean looking bag. If not - which I don't, anymore - tan is fine. You'll have to clean it a lot though.

Also - if you carry a Billingham chances somebody asks you about the camera around your neck increase by about 1000%. Crazy. When out with the camera by itself nobody _ever talks to me, but the Billingham seems to attract attention. Like a secret handshake to some weird Leica-Club I don't want to be a part of.

martin

 

[monochromejrnl]

I finally got around to borrowing my sisters digital camera, a few photos as requested by a fellow rff member.

I store my pens in the same 'fold' held by the button in my front pocket as well.

It's the best all round camera/gadget/small laptop bag I've ever used.

 

[monochromejrnl]

It's just the right kind of stiff for my taste. Absolutely go with black if you care about a clean looking bag. If not - which I don't, anymore - tan is fine. You'll have to clean it a lot though.

Also - if you carry a Billingham chances somebody asks you about the camera around your neck increase by about 1000%. Crazy. When out with the camera by itself nobody _ever talks to me, but the Billingham seems to attract attention. Like a secret handshake to some weird Leica-Club I don't want to be a part of.

martin

another reason why I went with the black on black version, it's not as easily identified as a billingham so no questions about the camera in it.... the mustard and tan version is easily recognizable which isn't the best thing (especially if you travel alot) when trying to be discrete....

 

[martin s]

For the pens I use a little box now, they're just too many to clip to the pocket. As a laptop bag (13", MB) I wouldn't recommend the Billingham in the size I have, the material wears quickly at the edges. I'd go one larger size or use the MBA which fits nicely and without much tension.

martin

 

[monochromejrnl]

although my ibook (13 inch) fits in the back (behind the insert) it's a tight fit, I typically use the bag to carry my 10 inch HP mini 2140

 

[mike kim]

I don't really care about cleanliness. The more broken in, the better. I personally like the tan colour better, but as you said, it attracts attention. If it attracts mostly other photographers because they know about the bag, then I don't mind. But I wonder to what extent it makes a difference with regular people (and/or thieves) since the bag looks fancy no matter what colour it is, just like how a leica is a leica even if you stick tape on the red dot.

 

[monochromejrnl]

black on black doesn't look fancy at all... it' looks like a black canvas bag... I was at a museum with my daughter and one of the staff warned me 'not to forget my 'diaper'' bag when I had turned away and went off to stop her from running towards a set of stairs....

the mustard colour bag screams expensive camera bag to those who know about cameras as well as those that don't....

 

[mike kim]

I always thought black was less attractive at first sight, but it does look quite a bit "professional" to some. Some people say Artisan & Artist bags (which IMO look less fancy than Billinghams of either colour, but are more expensive) look like diaper bags, inconspicuous, stealthy, etc. but I got one stolen nevertheless, not so long ago. The thieves might not have known there was an expensive camera inside, but they did know it had something valuable for sure. Maybe it was just bad luck... they also tried stealing my all-black Crumpler 4 MDH one time, which is even less attractive than all these bags. So I don't know what to think. There's no bag that does not scream "steal me".

 

[kully]

I've been using this bag (although mine has a handle) for 3.5 years now as a camera bag and also to take my sandwiches and stuff to work every day.

As Martin says, the extra shoulder pad makes a lot of difference and won't slip off the slope-ist of shoulders.

Mike - The material becomes more maleable over time, the initial stiffness does give way.

I've used it to carry around a 14" laptop+charger and books/documents with a M body and lens in one of the front pockets - it is suprisingly versatile (although with that much weight, it starts to hurt my back after a few hours).

The other cool thing is the water resistant properties of the material. I left the bag with cameras inside out in the rain overnight once - inside it was nice and dry.

I don't care about keeping it clean (unless I vomit on it or somesuch) and with some of this 'character' it just looks like a canvas 'manbag' - the only comments I've had have been of the ilke "you must be able to keep a lot of Tampax in that" rather than asking what cameras I have inside it.

 

[peterm1]

Its not wrong that this bag stains easily. I have an identical light tan colored one and its constantly dirty no matter how I look after it. But I do not regret the purchase for one second. Its a wonderful little bag - very stylish and does the job well. I am a Anglophile so the oh so British look is really very nice. Others may be a tad more practical but I would not dream of carrying my Leica kit in anything else. I should add that I do not find it much of a chore to clean. Some clean warm water, wool wash, a stiff nail brush and if really needed some spray on fabric cleaner usually does the trick. The bag is easily dried stuffed with a dry towel and hung in an airy spot out of the sun.

 

[mike kim]

the only comments I've had have been of the ilke "you must be able to keep a lot of Tampax in that" rather than asking what cameras I have inside it.

Hahaha, that's priceless.

Peter: I must admit I'm an anglophile as well, to the extent of having a British girlfriend myself. I'm partial to Billinghams, Austin Minis and The Clash... Having attended an English school all my life might have something to do with it. 😀

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

Hahaha, that's priceless.

Peter: I must admit I'm an anglophile as well, to the extent of having a British girlfriend myself. I'm partial to Billinghams, Austin Minis and The Clash... Having attended an English school all my life might have something to do with it. 😀

..there is help available-these days!😉

 

[Sparrow]

..there is help available-these days!😉

what? …. an ASBO … now that’s true Brit 😉

 

[Sparrow]

I have the same one as Kully, it’s the only bag I have, you san get loads of stuff in it. When it got really dirty I got SWMBO to put it in the washer then re-proofed it with that silicone stuff intended for shoes, the leather bits were a bit stiff afterwards but it came out like new.



the photo is pre-bath .. and it doesn’t actually look as grubby is it did in real-life, it looks a bit more crumpled now

 

[edodo]

I have the Billingham Hadley original in black neo fabric with black leather. No one in the two year I use it never asked me if it was a photo bag. In black/black it is the most stealthy camera bag I ever had. Good looking without the insert too for casual bag!

 

[chasfreeland]

Over recent years, I've acquired the "Hadley Original", the next one up in size from that, which I think is called the "Hadley Pro", and a third one. a model 535 or something like that, a larger model that I use for the Mamiya 7ii medium format cameras I carry. All three are black, and they do resist dirt and they seem to resist attention as well, it being that so many of the bags, satchels, duffles and shoulder packs people carry these days are black. They say black absorbs heat, but that hasn't been a huge problem for me. The bags comfortably carry quite a lot, especially the 5 series for medium format. And they are not only comfortable to carry, but they also hold up well. Finally, they seem rather water resistant. It would take quite a lot of rain before the interior got wet or damp. Some reviewers have found these bags to be "stylish". Well, I resisted buying the green colored models because I thought they looked more like a fisherman's trout bag. "Whad-ya bring back from the hunt today, honey?"