Peak Design Outdoor Sling 7L Tested With Camera Gear

Peak Design’s Outdoor Sling 7L was part of a hugely successful Outdoor Line Kickstarter campaign that raised over $2.5 million. In this review, I will walk you through all the features of the Outdoor Sling 7L and take a detailed look at how much camera gear it can carry when paired with Peak Design’s X-Small Camera Cube. I’ll also compare the Outdoor Sling 7L to the closely sized Peak Design Everyday Sling camera bags to help you make an informed purchasing decision.

Disclaimer: Peak Design provided the Outdoor Sling 7L for testing. No money changed hands, and they were not allowed to see the content before it was published.

Specifications

• Dimensions – 13 x 8.5 x 5.5″ ( 33 x 21.6 x 14 cm)
• Weight – 0.74 lb / 0.34 kg
• Compatible PD Camera Cube – X-Small
• Materials – 100% recycled Terra Shell 210D ripstop nylon
• Color Options at Launch – Cloud, Eclipse, Black
• Price – $72 at review time ($94.95 MSRP) – Check current price.

Design and Features

Compressible Design

The Outdoor Sling 7L features a lightly padded panel that sits close to the body but is otherwise unstructured. If you are not using the optional padded camera cube, the sling packs flat, which can be helpful for travel. On my first international trip with the bag, I opted to pack it into my checked duffel bag this way. This allowed me to use larger bags for my carry-on bags, while still having a lightweight smaller bag on hand at my destination.

The flat design and ultralight materials make including the bag in your travel kit easy without causing packing headaches or stressing your baggage weight allowance. I can see myself often throwing this into my duffel bag to give me the option of a lightweight bag bag on location, be that for a small camera kit, or to carry personal items while exploring a travel destination.

Variable Volume

The bag’s main compartment is where most of the 7L volume can be found. If this sounds like a large bag to you, but the Outdoor Sling 2L sounds too small, you should know that the space in the 7L bag can be nicely modulated with the cinch cords on the bottom. When fully tightened, the bag’s base is pinched together, creating a much smaller internal space and slimming the overall look of the sling on the outside. The excess cord can be tucked into two holes on the bag’s base, creating a sleek-looking bag with a roughly 4.5L volume.

Front Pocket

The Outdoor Sling 7L features a zippered front pocket, which is not seen on the smaller Outdoor Sling 2L. The pocket is large enough to hold small items like a thin pair of gloves, granola bars, phone, wallet, or keys attached to the included key clip. For photographers, it’s a great place to store one or two filters (in a case) and a lens cloth.

Interior Elastic Pockets

Sitting in front of the interior zippered pocket is a set of three elasticated pockets, perfectly sized for camera batteries. I also used these to store my Apple AirPods case and a coiled USB-C charging cable.

Interior Zippered Pocket

Inside the bag’s main compartment is a zippered, stretchy elasticated pocket. Within the pocket are four smaller elastic pockets. These small pockets are great for memory cards or smaller batteries, such as those for action cameras like a GoPro or DJI Action. The larger parent pocket is a great place to store sunglasses.

The combination of the zippered pocket and the three elastic pockets on the front of this internal pocket provides remarkably versatile organization for such a small bag. While the pockets are small, their extremely elastic nature suits oddly shaped items.

Tripod Carry

The elastic compression straps on the base of the sling can be used to attach a tripod. I tested this with Peak Design’s popular carbon Travel Tripod and found it works fine if the straps are tightened. I would not want to carry a larger or heavier tripod than this one, but it’s a workable solution if you want camera support with you.

The downside to carrying a tripod beneath any sling or shoulder bag is that your tripod is the first thing to touch the ground when you take the bag off. I’d be careful about using this configuration in sandy or dirty environments, as it may cause crud to accumulate in your tripod’s leg locks.

Stabilizer Strap

The Outdoor Sling 7L comes with a thin stabilizer strap that helps keep the bag in place while you move. The strap is thin and simple, but that’s all you need since it doesn’t support any load. One end of the strap connects to the main shoulder strap, while the other can be connected to one of several cord attachment points on the bag.

I found that when I carried just a few basic accessories in the sling, like my phone, sunglasses, and wallet, I didn’t need the stabilizer. However, once I opted to carry camera gear or my binoculars, the stabilizer strap was necessary to prevent the need for constant repositioning of the load.

Cord Hook External Carry

The Cord Hook system has been mentioned twice in the context of tripod carry and the bag’s adjustable internal volume. Still, it should also be noted that the system is handy for carrying other gear, such as rolled-up jackets or practically anything you may want to stuff into one of Peak Design’s ultralight packing cubes that are also available as part of the Outdoor Line.

Top Handle

The 7L sling bag features a thin, reasonably rigid cord top handle. Carrying a loaded bag for any distance with this handle wouldn’t be comfortable, but it is a handy way to reposition the bag when you aren’t wearing it. You can also hook the Cord Hook straps from the base of the bag to this handle to compress it.

Rear Pocket

Hidden between the bag’s main compartment and the rear padding is a slip pocket for a phone or other slim items like glasses or a notebook. The top of this pocket is secured closed with a magnet.

Shoulder Strap

The Outdoor Sling 7L features a relatively lightweight but comfortable shoulder strap that can be repositioned for left or right-shouldered carry. The hardware is bespoke Peak Design-branded and made from plastic. What’s nice about the flexibility and thickness of the strap padding is that the sling can also be worn as a fanny pack without the strap feeling out of place.

Using the X-Small Camera Cube

The Peak Design Outdoor Sling 7L is compatible with the smallest of the brand’s padded camera cubes, the X-Small Camera Cube. From the Peak Design website, it’s tough to tell what combinations of cameras and lenses fit into this, so I played around with various options in my office.

A Canon R5 Mark II with an RF 24-70mm f/2.8 doesn’t fit if you leave the lens attached to the camera body. However, if you detach the lens and stand it vertically, it does fit without zipping the cube lid closed. The same would be true of Nikon’s Z 24-70mm f/2.8. The smaller Sony 24-70mm f/2.8 GM II fit when I left it attached to a Sony a1, though it was tight. Smaller f/4 zooms were a much better fit. The outstandingly useful Sony 20-70mm f/4 G lens was a good fit when left on the camera, as was the 16-25mm f/2.8 G. The Nikon Z8 with Z 14-120mm f/4 was also a reasonable fit.

Of course, I can’t test all cameras and lens combinations, but if these examples don’t align with the lenses in your kit, you can cross-reference the dimensions to get an approximation. This bag is best suited for compact primes and f/4 zooms. However, other short-range f/2.8 zooms these days also fit, like the Sony 16-25mm f/2.8 and the Tamron 20-40mm f/2.8.

If you are a Canon or Nikon user wishing to carry your 24-70mm f/2.8 attached to a camera body, another option would be to opt for a simple neoprene LensCoat cover that wraps both the camera body and the lens. You get a little less bump protection than the Camera Cube, but it allows those with slightly larger zoom lenses to keep the lens attached to a camera and still fit in the Outdoor Sling 7L.

Peak Design Outdoor Sling 7L vs Everyday Sling 6L and 10L

I have no doubt more than a few Peak Design fans will be weighing up the choice between the newer Outdoor Sling 7L and one of the popular stalwarts of the Peak Design camera bag lineup, the Everyday Sling. The Everyday Sling is available in 3L, 6L, and 10L sizes. Since the Outdoor Sling 7L sits somewhere between 6L and 10L Everyday Slings, comparing it to those models is most beneficial. However, the Outdoor Sling 7L doesn’t offer native protection for camera gear. For this reason, I’m including a column that compares specifications of the Outdoor Sling 7L + XS Camera Cube combination.

Cross-referencing all these dimensions shows that while the maximum volume of the Outdoor Sling 7L sits nicely between that of the 6L and 10L Everyday Sling bags, this isn’t the case if you look at camera capacity. As we have seen in the review, the Outdoor Sling 7L is only compatible with Peak Design’s XS Camera Cube. This cube is a little wider than the interior of the Everyday Sling 6L but quite a bit shorter (9″ vs 11″) on the longest dimension.

If you’re trying to decide between the Outdoor Sling 7L and the Everyday Sling 6L, carefully measure the camera load you want to carry. As we have seen earlier, cameras with larger attached zooms, like a 24-70mm f/2.8 on a full-frame camera, are a tight fit in the Outdoor Sling 7L (Sony) or don’t fit at all (Nikon, Canon). The Outdoor Sling 7L is better suited to smaller f/4 zooms and compact primes on full-frame camera, or APS-C cameras, unless you are willing to detach the lens from the body. On the other hand, and somewhat counter-intuitively, an attached 24-70mm f/2.8 fits well in the Everyday Sling 6L.

When I compared the Everyday Sling 10L to the Outdoor Sling 10L, there was a night and day difference in camera capacity. The ED 10L can hold a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens standing vertically, which doesn’t fit at all in the Outdoor Sling 7L. Though the bag’s volume difference is just 3L, I’d estimate you can carry twice as much camera gear or more in the ED 10L vs the Outdoor Sling 7L. Not to mention the fact that the Everyday Sling has a laptop compartment capable of holding a 14″ MacBook Pro. In reality, alongside the Outdoor Sling 7L, the Everyday Sling 10L feels like a different category of bag. Less like a sling and more like a laptop bag in the way it feels when carrying it.

Conclusion

I’m a huge fan of multi-functional products for travel and adventure. Efficiently and elegantly solving varied carry conundrums with a single adaptable bag sets my bag nerd fire aglow, and here, the Peak Design Outdoor Sling 7L truly excels. In its as-sold guise as an ultralight, adaptable-volume sling, its well-designed organization makes for the perfect daily carry or travel day companion. For photographers, adding Peak Design’s X-Small Camera Cube turns it into one of the lightest fully-features camera bags on the market and a fantastic way to small camera + single lens kit on your adventure.

My only gripe is not with the bag as sold but with the fact that Peak Design hasn’t designed a Camera Cube specifically for this sling. The X-Small Camera Cube works well if it’s large enough to hold the gear you want to carry. However, it’s a tight fit for Sony users who wish to leave a 24-70mm attached to the camera and a total no-go for Canon and Nikon users wanting that same popular setup.

With the X-Small Camera Cube in the sling, a couple of inches of extra space remains. Had Peak Design created a bespoke padded insert for this sling that used all the additional space, it would have easily held that so-often-used walkabout combo of a full-frame camera with an attached 24-70mm f/2.8. Instead, anyone wanting to carry that combination, Sony users aside, must detach the lens and store it vertically alongside the camera body—perhaps not a deal-breaker, but something that could have been improved.