After my review of the unpadded Manfrotto MBAG80N, I thought I would write about the largest in the range, the padded Manfrotto MBAG120PN. This is a beast of a bag, but I bought it to transport a beast of a tripod, the aluminium Uni-loc 1600 System Major. Without doubt, it’s a great tripod, one of my favourites for working in the field, so to speak, but it’s somewhat unwieldy to carry. Think of it as a very heavy set of bagpipes, and you’ll be on the right track. After selling my Manfrotto 075B some twenty years ago, which I deeply regret (it’s one of the best studio tripods ever made…

Tripods are awkward to transport and store, and to make matters worse, they’re often supplied without a bag or case. If you want to use your tripod more, a bag is a good way to get it out of the closet. As one of the leading manufacturers of tripods, Manfrotto unsurprisingly makes several bags. Their padded and unpadded MBAG range shares several features, including a preformed (padded) ‘cap’ for protecting pricey tripod/video heads, a padded base, a full-length two-way zip with zip pulls, and an adjustable shoulder strap. Padded variants are suffixed with PN after the length, while N indicates unpadded. So, for example, my unpadded Manfrotto 80cm bag has…