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Camera bags

The Billingham Bag For the Most Beautiful Cameras

Chris Gampat
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Last updated on 02/27/2025
02/27/2025
3 Mins read
Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Billingham TEN-16 review product images 21-25s400APO-SUMMICRON-SL 1-2-28 ASPH.
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Last Updated on 02/27/2025 by Lara Carretero

“This is our first ever camera bag designed for compact cameras such as Fujifilm X100VI, Leica D-Lux and similar styles,” is what Billingham said to us in an email when introducing their new Billingham TEN-16 camera bag. “This new camera bag is also our first bag to have a leather shoulder sling. The shoulder sling of the TEN-16 is removable and there are leather fixings on the back so that you can attach on a belt for a handsfree approach.” The clever design is a modernization of those hip-cases folks had to hold compact cameras. While I adore this bag, it’s probably Billingham’s most niche offering yet.

There truly isn’t a whole lot to say about this bag. If anything, I’d consider it more of a case. The Billingham TEN-16 comes in a slew of different colors and is made of the same style of canvas that we’ve seen from so many of the company’s other bags. There’s also leather involved. The thing about the Billingham TEN-16 is that it completes the weather sealing of the interior with a drawstring. This is a design feature that to me, kills the appeal. When I open up a bag, I don’t really want to have to undo a drawstring. I want to be able to just access my camera and go.

Billingham could’ve fixed this with a design that comes over the top of the bottom part of the camera bag, but that would’ve been admittedly hard to do while also including the hip strap.

This bag doesn’t let you store anything else in there. And to me, that’s a bit sad. These days, I often need to carry around contact lenses, eye drops, and a special plunger to use to insert my contact lenses. But instead, I’d need to either opt for my glasses or carry all that stuff in another case. What this means is that the Billingham TEN-16 is best brought with you during the colder months when you’d also be wearing a jacket of some sort. While this is meant to directly holster your camera, your jacket and pants will hold all the other essentials if you’re the type to not want to bring another bag with you. So that means that I’d never see myself bringing this with me during the summer unless I was wearing cargo pants.

A Canon camera sits on a red pouch, surrounded by scattered Polaroid photos on a wooden surface.
A red and brown camera bag on a wooden desk surrounded by photos, headphones, and miscellaneous items.
Camera with a red cover, a camera strap, and scattered photos on a wooden table.
Red and brown leather camera bag on a table with polaroid photos and floral paper.

I tried this bag with a few different cameras and found that it felt comfortable when slung around my chest. In all my years of testing Billingham’s products, there has only ever been one bag that I didn’t really like. That’s a testament to how great they are despite being pretty pricey. Truly, everything about the bag is built very solidly and I can’t find a major functionality fault with it. Instead, I’m just turned off by the weather resistance being complete with a drawstring mechanic.

Still, I have to admire the amazing fact that Billingham can get a bag out this quickly. Camera brands would’ve taken years to do it. But Billingham, being a smaller and more boutique company, can get it out sooner.

I look forward to using this bag only on the days where I’m wearing a jacket.

billingham camera bag Compact Camera leica x100 x100vi
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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