tl;dr:

I picked up one of these from Huckberry recently when they were on sale for half price. At that price I think it's a great bag. At full price, it's a somewhat tougher sell. I like the design philosophy of the dividers and find it a pleasant bag to use, but any bulkier accessories (like a power bank or camera battery charger) can be quite hard to make room for. The strap connectors are potentially a bit sus; time will tell. The strap quick adjust mechanism is great and it's comfortable to use with the loads you can fit in it.

I'm putting a "read more" break here and I advise you to not click it, because there is more information than you want contained within.

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Long-form first impressions:

Ostensibly there are two things that differentiate the Bellroy Venture camera sling model from other camera slings. First, the dividers are not attached with velcro and not repositionable. Instead, they are sewn in at the sides, but not the bottom, and connected with elastic, meaning that they move to accommodate various size items. This is somewhat limiting compared to a traditional velcro bag, but I think most people run a three-part divider setup in this kind of bag anyway, and velcro dividers and lining can be a pain to work with, especially if you frequently change what you're carrying.

Second, the bag is supposed to be less rigidly padded than most other camera bags. As a fan of the classic Domke F3X, which has almost no padding other than on the bottom, this appealed to me. Most camera bags are designed to feel "bombproof" and provide the maximum protection to drops and bumps. But this means that the bag cannot conform to your body for better ergonomics; it just hangs off your shoulder or neck like a big, heavy brick. In this regard, I think that the Venture still errs too much on the side of protection. The camera compartment is very padded on the exterior, and hence pretty rigid. The lighter padding on the dividers does maximize internal capacity though.

Which it had better, because although the bag is listed at 10L, it feels like it has about half the functional volume capacity of my Tenba Solstice 10L. Having a smaller capacity isn't good or bad in itself, but using the Venture is a bit more limiting than I was expecting.

I have two main setups that I would carry in a bag like this, currently:

• Mirrorless body with one compact prime mounted, 1-2 additional small lenses, 1-2 Ricoh GRIIIs
• Mirrorless body with one compact prime mounted, one additional lens, largeish flash, folding flash bracket, trigger cable and sundries

The first fits well in the Venture, with the side stretch pockets being perfect for holding a compact camera.

The second is more of a pain to squeeze in. A large speedlight fits okay, but the accessories needed to make it work become challenging to fit in.

And in either setup, it's problematic to bring along a USB power bank, battery chargers, a blower, and any other compact but not flat accessories, because the front pocket on the Venture is small and hard to get into. There's a small pocket within the main compartment for spare batteries, but nothing thicker than a battery would fit well there. (Also, the sub-pockets for the batteries are terrible at holding batteries.)

If for some reason you wanted to carry multiple bodies with small lenses and didn't need as many extra unmounted lenses, that setup would work fine.

So, I end up devoting one of the divided spaces in the main compartment to those chunky items, giving up a lens's worth of carrying capacity.

There's also no provision for a tablet and no way to secure a water bottle (other than possibly with the tripod straps). The side pockets in the main compartment go wide enough for a bottle, but it would have to be a really, really short bottle. Maybe just carry a can of Lacroix? Lol. (Note: The Tenba Solstice 10L carries both a full-size iPad and a water bottle. It weighs only half a pound more than the Venture, empty. However, it is quite easy to overload the Solstice's narrow strap.)

On the positive side, the bag carries quite comfortably despite being somewhat brickish. The auto-compressing Bellroy strap is a smart design which keeps the load close to your body, and the small capacity and cylindrical shape mean you can't really overload it and the weight is well-distributed within the volume.

The bag itself is lightweight. I haven't weighed it or my other bags, but when comparing the stated specs of camera slings and shoulder bags in this class, the Venture claims to be the lightest. Actual weight is less important to me than how comfortably the bag carries, but all else being equal, a lighter bag is better. it also makes the Venture more suitable for use as an ad hoc camera cube inside a larger bag, which I think would be a great use for it as long as you don't mind that it's not rectangular in shape.

The strap quick adjust is very well designed. It allows for fast, one-handed adjustment of the strap length while keeping the strap end captive so nothing dangles as on a traditional messenger bag strap. However, it is easy to accidentally grab the adjuster when swinging the bag around your body and unintentionally adjust the length.

I don't use a compact tripod, but the tripod straps work very well for securing a light layer.

The strap connectors are a source of concern. I have seen some reports of failures of this part. They seem fine on my bag so far, but the plastic side is quite thin in spots, so it's easy to see how it could break. I am considering tying a safety cord or something on there as a fallback in case of catastrophic failure in use.

The zipper setup, which appears on other Bellroy Venture bags, is odd, but mostly fine. It uses two pulls that zip from either end, rather than opening from the middle. The result is that you get wider access on whichever side you open from. This works well in practice, except when the zipper pulls get tucked under or behind the auto-compressing strap, and you have to fish them out. They also form sort of lips at either end that you can kind of use as handles, as youtuber Mountainborn pointed out in one of his reviews of the other Bellroy bags.

The "bellroy" logo appears to be a sticker? And a little janky looking.

Comparisons to other bags I have

• Tenba Solstice 10L: Unlike the Venture, the Solstice has an iPad sleeve and a water bottle pocket, and holds a lot more gear despite the same stated volume. The Solstice is bigger, but it's only half a bound heavier when empty. However, it is pretty easy to overload the Solstice's thin strap.
• Domke F3X: The OG. The Domke is a floppy canvas bag which is extremely flexible and versatile in use. In terms of its ability to store camera gear and to be worked out of as a camera bag, it's hard to beat, and it conforms to your body, making it more ergonomic than it looks. However, it is still a shoulder bag, so it can get in the way while walking and the canvas wears out over time, and the stock strap can't be quickly adjusted.
• ILE Photo Bag Mini: I got this in a sample sale, so production bags might differ. This is a classic square brick bag, but tweaked for cycling use with a stabilizer strap. It has oversized padding which I find kind of annoying, especially the thick internal dividers, but for cycling use this makes some sense. In practice it carries a pretty similar amount of stuff to the Venture, despite having less organization. The Venture is probably a more comfortable bag, although the ILE strap pad is beefier. Surprisingly, the Photo Bag Mini does not have messenger-style quick adjust.

Camera Sling Specs Comparison

Bag	Weight	iPad?	Quick adjust strap	Good place for bottle?
Bellroy Venture Camera 10L	1.1	No	Maybe?	No
Moment Rugged 6L	1.37	Yes	Yes	No
TT Storyteller 10	1.5lb	Yes?	No	No
Wandrd Roam 6L	1.5	dumb	Yes?	No
Nomatic McKinnon 8L	1.58	No	?	No
Chrome Niko 2 5L	1.6lb	No	Yes	Not really
Tenba Solstice 10L	1.6lb	Yes	Yes, but mediocre	Yes
TT Urban Access 10	1.6lb	Yes	Yes?	Not really
Compagnon Element 6L	1.65lb	Yes	No	Yes
Peak ED Sling 6L	1.72lb	Yes	Yes	Not really
Moment Rugged 10L	1.74	Yes	Yes	No
Wandrd Roam 9L	1.74	dumb	Yes?	No
F-Stop Dyota 11L	1.76lb	Yes	Yes
Wotancraft Pilot 7L	1.85lb	Yes	Yes (New)	Yes
Peak ED Sling 10L	1.94lb	Yes	Yes	Not really
Waterfield Cargo Compact	2lb	No?	No, but rplcbl	No
TT Photocross 10 (7.5L)	2.1lb	Yes	Yes?	Yes
Chrome Niko 3 9L	2.14	No	Yes	No
TT Photocross 13 (11L)	2.4lb	Yes	Yes?	Yes
Waterfield Cargo Full	2.5lb	No	No, but rplcbl	No
Wotancraft Pilot 10L	2.54lb	Yes	Yes (New)	Yes
Domke J3 9.3L	2.6lb	No	No	Yes
Hadley Pro 2020 6L	2.7lb	Yes	No, but rplcbl	Not really
Hadley One 8.75L	3.04lb	Yes	No, but rplcbl	Not really
Compagnon Element 15L	3.53lb	Yes	Yes?	Yes