Customer reviews from Peak Design
Peak Design - Outdoor Backpack 45L - Eclipse
Average customer rating
4.3
(242 Reviews)
Rating breakdown 242 reviews
5 Stars
147
4 Stars
51
3 Stars
25
2 Stars
9
1 Star
10
86%of customers recommend this product.
(
179 out of
207)
Customer Reviews for Peak Design - Outdoor Backpack 45L - Eclipse
Customer Rating
5
The Best Backpack I’ve Ever Owned.
on December 5, 2024
Posted by: Puko Moto
I spent years searching for a backpack like this, and I’ve finally found it.
This backpack is perfect for everything—whether you’re heading to the mountains or just using it for your daily life. As a photographer and motorcyclist, it’s incredibly practical. Plus, it works seamlessly with Peak Design’s camera modules.
The external compartments are a lifesaver when you need extra storage space on the go. It’s also packed with features that make it even better: it’s super comfortable to wear, with reinforced padding for added support and security, and it’s compatible with waterproof covers to protect your gear in any weather. There’s even a dedicated compartment for your laptop, keeping it safe and easy to access.
So, what fits in my 45L backpack?
Sony A7 III camera
2 lenses
DJI Ronin stabilizer
DJI Mini 4 drone
DJI Action Camera + accessories
Batteries + chargers
Macbook PRO
Tripod (attached externally)
Extra room for a hoodie
I can confidently say I’ve found THE PERFECT BACKPACK.
2 lenses
DJI Ronin stabilizer
DJI Mini 4 drone
DJI Action Camera + accessories
Batteries + chargers
Macbook PRO
Tripod (attached externally)
Extra room for a hoodie
I can confidently say I’ve found THE PERFECT BACKPACK.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting Peak Design
Customer Rating
5
Feature rich and fantastic outdoor camera bag
on January 9, 2025
Posted by: Kat
from Arlington, VA
Overall rating: 4.5
Overall, I've really enjoyed using this bag so far. I received it as part of the Kickstarter and have so far used it for day hikes and at a multi-day tech conference. For day hikes, it easily carried my Fujifilm XT30 in an X-Small camera cube, the travel tripod, a first aid kit, layers, snacks, and a 3 L water reservoir (filled up to 2.5 L). For the tech conference, I could fit both my MacBook Pro 16-inch and an iPad in the sleeve plus accessories and conference swag. For size reference, I'm a 5'8" woman with a slender frame, and it fits great. My 6'4" tall, broader framed husband also got the bag, and it's a bit small on him, though still usable.
Features that I particularly like:
* The bag is lightweight and very collapsible. I could stow it under a plane seat and pack it away in a checked back easily.
* Straps are much more comfortable than any other Peak Design bags. They did have a break-in period for me as they were very stiff in the beginning.
* The clamshell opening makes it so easy to access your things, especially if you are stashing heavier items towards the bottom of the bag
* The pockets on the straps are fantastic for stowing my iPhone Pro 15 Max, though you lose one of them if you put a capture clip on the strap.
* The water bottle sleeves are so stretchy and easy to stash large water bottles. I love how tall they are since they also keep a tripod in place.
* The kangaroo pouch and associated front pockets are also very convenient places for storage.
* The eclipse color is a gorgeous maroon-purplish color. The material wipes clean very nicely; I got a ton of orange/red mud on it from hiking out in Zion and none it remained.
* The bag is lightweight and very collapsible. I could stow it under a plane seat and pack it away in a checked back easily.
* Straps are much more comfortable than any other Peak Design bags. They did have a break-in period for me as they were very stiff in the beginning.
* The clamshell opening makes it so easy to access your things, especially if you are stashing heavier items towards the bottom of the bag
* The pockets on the straps are fantastic for stowing my iPhone Pro 15 Max, though you lose one of them if you put a capture clip on the strap.
* The water bottle sleeves are so stretchy and easy to stash large water bottles. I love how tall they are since they also keep a tripod in place.
* The kangaroo pouch and associated front pockets are also very convenient places for storage.
* The eclipse color is a gorgeous maroon-purplish color. The material wipes clean very nicely; I got a ton of orange/red mud on it from hiking out in Zion and none it remained.
Things I think they could have done better:
* Overall, I think Peak Design was not properly prepared for the official release of the bag. The bag is incredibly feature-rich, and I think more people would have been more satisfied if they had more detailed overviews and instructions. I backed it through Kickstarter and completely understand them not having the videos in place at that point in time, but everything should have been available by the time of the official retail release.
* As others have mentioned, the water reservoir routing is not compatible with all reservoirs. This is understandable since every brand does something different, but I think it would be helpful to have a list of tested reservoirs with maximum compatibility (similar to the screen protector list with their phone cases). Additionally, the reservoir loop not having a buckle is slightly annoying since my Platypus reservoir only has a hole through the top plastic. To use them together, I had to use a small carabiner to attach the reservoir to the loop.
* Overall, I think Peak Design was not properly prepared for the official release of the bag. The bag is incredibly feature-rich, and I think more people would have been more satisfied if they had more detailed overviews and instructions. I backed it through Kickstarter and completely understand them not having the videos in place at that point in time, but everything should have been available by the time of the official retail release.
* As others have mentioned, the water reservoir routing is not compatible with all reservoirs. This is understandable since every brand does something different, but I think it would be helpful to have a list of tested reservoirs with maximum compatibility (similar to the screen protector list with their phone cases). Additionally, the reservoir loop not having a buckle is slightly annoying since my Platypus reservoir only has a hole through the top plastic. To use them together, I had to use a small carabiner to attach the reservoir to the loop.
TLDR:
The bag is not perfect, but it is a really great travel bag and an even better outdoor bag for photographers.
The bag is not perfect, but it is a really great travel bag and an even better outdoor bag for photographers.
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting Peak Design
Customer Rating
1
Possibly the Worst Backpack I've Ever Owned
on April 24, 2025
Posted by: R.Hofmann
from Austria
This backpack is the worst one I have ever owned. The shoulder straps are too wide and don't sit comfortably. The back panel, after only a few months of use, has bent leaving a sharp line across the lower back making it extremely uncomfortable (unless there is a laptop in the bag acting as support for the back). The side pockets are not easily accessible, making getting a water bottle in and out very difficult. The interior is like a vast black hole. There are not interior pockets aside from the laptop one. I even purchased the additional smedium camera packing cube to fit in it, but it does not fit the two camera bodies and lenses well (as I had expected) and I find that when clipped into the bag I have to open it too much to access the gear (resulting in the possibility of gear/equiptment falling out and breaking). The only small pockets are in the front of the bag, these are good but limited. The main pocket is a rolling top and the sides do not stretch/extend much so you can not really stuff it full. The very front pocket does not provide any additional stretch at all so when filling it takes up interior space by pushing into the bag instead of outward.
If this bag had some sort of built-in interior pockets it would be much better. I previously had the Peak Design Everyday Backpack and it was SO MUCH BETTER! Pockets and storage for days, accessible side pockets, laptop sleeve, etc. I switched because I wanted something that had the hip straps for the backcountry/hiking I do with my gear. It was a mistake and this bag is so poorly designed that I may never purchase another Peak Design bag again.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Written by a customer while visiting Peak Design
Customer Rating
1
Big disappointment
on November 30, 2024
Posted by: JPvR
from Netherlands
I ordered the 25l version thinking this was a great value for photographers and skiing. Big disappointment it was. For skiing everything is to meddlesome to fiddle with. The camera pouch is not easily accessible and the straps on the chest you cannot use wearing gloves. Entering a sky lift is to much trouble. For photo walking it would have been my primary goal. However. No easy access to equipment during walking. For me this backpack is a big and expensive mistake!
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Written by a customer while visiting Peak Design
Customer Rating
3
Innovative, practical, but too much wear and tear.
on March 9, 2026
Posted by: aljen
from Lübeck, German
I've bought this one in Summer 2025. About half a year since then, I still like the concept and even discover new features & use cases from time to time. The longer I use it, the more I'm getting used to it. Speaking about use: for me, it's my daily all-purpose rucksack as well as my photo stuff carrier (MFT). Grace to the cube concept, re-packing is a breeze.
All in all just a typical Peak Design one? Well, the answer is "jain" – the fabulous German word for "yes and no in one".
I have to say, I'm disappointed with the quality of the backpack's material. After just a few weeks, whitish spots have appeared on the surface of the cover, looking as if the material has cracked. These spots are visible on the edges, on the surfaces — basically everywhere on the "flap". Keep in mind: I don't drag the backpack around on the ground or squeeze through narrow canyons, so it's not due to misuse. If this were a backpack that had seen a few years and a few hikes, it would be understandable and might even add a certain charm, like an old waxed jacket. But on a backpack that's not even six months old, it unfortunately doesn't look so great. To me, this indicates a quality issue.
Of course, I understand that a backpack is primarily a tool and some wear and tear is normal. Nevertheless, I expect a bit better quality from Peak Design, especially considering the price range. I already own several pieces of luggage from Peak Design and have always had very good experiences. This problem is therefore somewhat surprising, and I hope it's an isolated incident. Peak Design, I'm sure you can do better. Maybe I just got a lemon?
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Written by a customer while visiting Peak Design
Customer Rating
2
Big Bummer
on March 9, 2025
Posted by: camalot
from Oregon
I bought this bag when it was still being crowd funded. Honestly, I had such high hopes for it. Unfortunately, it's been one of my biggest buying regrets. I took it to Joshua Tree for its first outing, after two plane flights and eight days in the field it's already already looking beat up. I loved the theory and conception for pretty much everything here... but all the features are just a little too convoluted or annoying or just not sized correctly. Extremely disappointing given the money.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Written by a customer while visiting Peak Design
Customer Rating
1
A bag I wanted to love, but just can't...
on August 10, 2025
Posted by: A wildlife photographer
from Wherever there are wild birds...
The title is not hyperbole. I had been hoping PD would bring out a bag designed for active outdoor use since the Everyday Messenger Kickstarter (the first of many KS projects for PD I've backed over the years). So I backed this one on the first day.
On delivery, I was underwhelmed at best. But I tried to make a go of it. This is less a review of specific features (and some of the truly puzzling design issues have been addressed by others), and more about my own expectations and experience with the bag in the field on two different expeditions, and a comparison with the two bags I hoped this one would replace. This covered a two-week trip in March, 2025, a second two-week trip in June 2025, and a final one-week trip in July 2025. Of course, your experiences will be different, but I hope this is helpful in your buying decision.
My photography is primarily of wild birds, and I was looking for something that could carry long glass on long hikes. My go to that I was looking to upgrade is a skiing backpack rated at 32L. A PD Medium cube fits in there reasonably well. A bit of a struggle getting the empty cube in there, but it holds up well, can be fully loaded, and is still easily accessible from the back panel of the bag. I've taken this to the Himalayas and the Andes, and the jungles of Southeast Asia and rainforests in Central America. It has been through its paces. The second bag is a 29L waterproof bag designed for fly fishing. The medium PD camera cube fits inside it well, too, although access is a bit more problematic, but a fair tradeoff for the specific use case (basically only when a trip involves travel by Zodiac...).
The biggest reason I wanted the Outdoor 45L was to fit the large camera cube. This would allow me to take both a long lens and a spotting scope out into the field with me. I wanted this to be the perfect bag for when I went out and had to hike to get to the birds. And one of the cool things in early testing was that the water bottle pockets were large enough that it can actually hold my scope, with the tripod on the other side. So when I did get to where we were birding, I didn't have to get back into the bag to move my stuff around...
Ironically, the first use this spring -- especially a couple day hikes to remote nests in Panama's Darien region -- only made me miss the ski pack. Quite frankly, the bag was painful to carry. Yeah, I know this seems to be a feature with PD's bags. See the Travel Line bag for star witness number 1 in this regard. But this was supposed to be a new, and seemingly plush, harness! And it did initially feel good. Until it didn't. And most frustratingly of all, the load lifters and straps were both confusing and difficult to use. Making some features on bags as thin as possible isn't always a good idea. And as for the water bottle pouches? Well, after hiking up with them empty, when I got to the nesting region, I noted they had already suffered two holes. Doesn't bode well for the long-term durability of the bag, unfortunately. The insult to injury was that access to the camera cube is actually more difficult with the PD bag than it is with the skiing bag! And this is even before the issues of the other poorly thought out design choices, including the routing of the water bladder hose that prevents fully opening the back, the need to crush or move out of the way pockets (and thus lose functionality) to use the Capture Clip load points, an approach that relies on using so many cords that anyone who has spent any time in the outdoors asked for never, the lack of an integrated space for the rainfly that was on the Travel Line (and infuriatingly has a little area that seems to have been designed for just this purpose, but was never followed through on), and for the kicker -- ultimately not an appreciably greater level of storage than I have in my roughly 30L other bags! Yes, a larger cube fits in this bag, but there is seemingly more (and better thought out) additional storage possibilities even when using the PD bag with a medium cube.
I didn't want to give up on the bag, though, and was willing to chalk the discomfort with it up to my sizing adjustments made prior to this trip as being just off. So, after returning home, watched all the videos, made all the measurements, dialed it in, and set off with the back on the second two-week road trip to Nevada's Ruby Mountains. On the first full day there, I took it on an all day hike. Well, it wasn't supposed to be that long of a hike but the bag was so uncomfortable that I stopped pretty frequently to rest.
Fortunately the skiing bag was in the car as well, and I have not used the PD bag since.
The gear I was carrying isn't light by any stretch of the imagination. But this was marketed, and presumably designed, as a bag that could carry a large camera cube -- a cube that there is a reasonable expectation would be heavy. There's even a picture in the camera cubes part of this website showing an Outdoor Line backpack loaded with more and probably heavier glass than what I usually take. The skiing pack and even the flyfishing backpack handle these weights with ease! This is even more impressive with the fly fishing bag as it lacks a true hip-belt, and I doubt either bag was designed with lugging loads as heavy as a loaded medium-sized camera cube.
My most recent trip was with the skiing bag alone. Poor planning on our part had us rushing to meet up with a guide for a glacier hike in the middle of the trip. Well, I prefer to call it poor planning rather than saying a decision on my part to stop for 20 minutes en route to take a picture of this cool bird that was just posing along the side of the road...
It was a travel day, so the pack was loaded with all my gear for the trip. Two telephotos, one mid-range zoom, one UWA, two primes. Probably looked closer to the pic of the camera cube in the Outdoor Line bag I mentioned above. Because of our lateness, I didn't have time to actually pull everything out and load up the bag with just the mid-range zoom as I had originally planned. I carried easily more weight than I had in either the Darien or the Ruby Mountains. For four hours without a real break -- because we were hiking/climbing up a glacier... I seriously did not think this one through. And yet, I really didn't feel the weight. Even when the guide was laughing at me for carrying so much with me. (But tellingly, he had the larger version of same bag I was carrying, speaking to its load carrying qualities.) Probably the very limit of how long I want to carry a pack of that weight anytime in the future, but very reassuring to know that if needed, it can handle it.
After that trip I put the PD Outdoor Line 45L up for sale...
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
Written by a customer while visiting Peak Design
Customer Rating
5
Perfect Backpack for a Hobby Outdoor Photographer
on November 14, 2024
Posted by: Guy
from Ohio
The 1* review on here upset me and I felt obligated to post one. That review stated there's no instructions- there's literally a 30 minute setup guide on the YouTube channel. The bag is admittedly not super intuitive to use at first, but the video explains everything. Not to mention, he and I only have this now because we backed it on kickstarter and received it TWO MONTHS earlier than they originally promised.
Anyway I haven't used this for any serious backpacking yet, but I have used it as a daily bag with as much heavy stuff in it as possible to get a sense of the comfort/sizing and make any adjustments before I take it on a real trip.
If you've had a Peak Design bag before, the features, quality, practicality, etc. are all there exactly as you'd expect. It's light- maybe not light enough for serious ultralight people, but personally I'm one to bring 3 camera lenses I never end up using, so an extra 500g from the bag makes no difference.
The bag is very comfortable thanks to being able to change the strap attachment points. But honestly comfort is purely subjective, no bag is going to be a great fit for every single person. Peak Design or otherwise.
My recommendation is to get this bag if you think you'll like it. If you're an amateur/hobby photographer with a good amount of gear that likes to go hiking/camping and won't be carrying it for more than a day or two at a time, this is an excellent choice. If you're into long, multi-day backpacking trips, or are measuring the weight of each piece of gear down to the gram, there are probably more practical choices (that aren't as cool.)
I would recommend this to a friend!
Written by a customer while visiting Peak Design