I just took delivery of the F-Stop Gear "Satori" 62L pack. It seems like a good compromise between a serious hiking pack and a camera daypack design. I have only hiked around the living room, and plan to walk a mile or two in the local park to see how it feels.
Pluses: Satori seems very well made, the beefy hip belt, beefy shoulder strap, shoulder and hip tensioning straps, compression straps, and internal liner with laptop or Camelbak/ Platypus/ other hydration bladder slot are all good, as are the interchangeable "internal camera units" of varying sizes. "Medium shallow" internal camera unit accommodates my consumer DSLR Canon 60D with L-bracket (body, lens not attached), Canon 400mm f/5.6L, Canon 15-85mm f/variable and its removable hood, Sigma 8-16mm f/variable, 1.4xTCII, Canon "A" tripod ring - a total of approximately 11 liters including ICU itself, leaving 51 L for camping gear, with the tripod/head mounted on the back or side outside the pack, and the "small stuff" (extra batteries, cards, microfiber cloth, puffer, plastic bag, nodal slide, etc) in the top small compartment. Large shallow ICU is 14 L, extra-large Pro ICU is 25 L.
My complaints: It is one-size-fits-all, and that all is a medium male torso, 18.5" torso length. I am a 17" to 17.5" torso length, ample-breasted, thin woman, and I had to tweak straps quite a bit. The sternum strap is 3" too low and not adjustable higher, it may need to be abandoned. It now feels pretty good, for the most part, but I may do some after-market adjustments: 1. either make a new sternum strap attached to the next higher portion of the shoulder pad strap, or cut the existing plastic attachments and re-install the original sternum strap higher up. 2. shoulder strap attachment to pack back/ frame is a little too high, I wonder if I can construct a pad for the shoulder pad to take up the space a bit without having to tug on the shoulder "lift" strap to its maximum.
If F/stop gear chose to have an option whereby the back panel opening was shortened two inches and the shoulder strap attachment points were adjustable, that would be very nice.
