As a photographer of over 20 years, I don’t think there is a brand that makes a better messenger bag than Billingham. Every single thing that the brand has made felt like they’ve not just knocked it out of the park — they sent the ball into another state. The ball flew so fast it ripped a hole in the fabric of reality and to this day, no other brand can do what they do. When looking at the Billingham 225 MKII, I have to truly say that I was a bit perplexed. But then I realized how incredible it is for traveling.
This review won’t be written like many of our other bag reviews designed to please the Google overlords. It truly sickens me that one company can dictate what modern journalism looks like. And with that in mind, I’ll tell you a story.
For a long time, I looked at the Billingham 225 MKII and tried to figure out how the heck I’d use it. At the same time, I pondered on who this bag was designed for. I’m a journalist for a living and I happen to report on the photography world. If I wanted to use a messenger bag, I’d always pick up my Hadley series options. Those bags are simple, incredible, stylish, durable, etc. Those bags will outlive me — that’s a fact that I don’t need to be confident in.
But when you look at the Billingham 225 MKII, you can’t help but wonder what the heck it would be used for. This bag is designed to hold a camera, a lens, and perhaps a flash or another small camera. You can also stuff a 12-inch iPad Pro in there, a Kindle, and a bunch of other things. All those other things are sort of crammed away into the front pocket. And the camera stuff is in the back area.
Perhaps the oddest thing about this bag, though, is that opening it up is a complex puzzle. A photographer needs to undo a strap, lift another, undo another strap, lift a flap, and then access the gear. By all means, the Billingham 225 MKII isn’t a bag designed for quicker access the way the Hadley series is. And because of that, I really wonder why this wasn’t just made into a backpack.
Every year, I ask Billingham’s marketing folks if we could collaborate to make a backpack. They tell me no in the kindest and most British way, too. However, if the Billingham 225 MKII were backpack-shaped, I’d probably rate it their best bag ever made — probably.
The majority of my usage of the Billingham 225 MKII came when I traveled to Rome with the rest of TIPA for our annual conference. I packed a Canon point-and-shoot and the Canon EOS R along with the 24-105mm f4 into the bag. And with the exception of one day, the bag pretty much stayed in the room. It’s not balanced correctly for me to want to bring it around all day — and at 37 years old I’ve already screwed my back up enough. In the field, it takes forever to get to the content inside. And more importantly, it’s huge. It feels like I’m bringing around a Duffel bag at times.
In the modern photography world, I’m not sure why someone would use this bag except for travel. And even then, Billingham makes much better camera bags.
Currently, the bag sits in my closet, holding lots of medium-format camera gear. Would I use it again? Probably, but I own so many other phenomenal Billingham bags. If the brand had transformed this into a backpack, I’m convinced that God would’ve cussed for the first time in awe of what his creations had made. The canvas and leather intertwined to make this bag are beautiful in a way that modern language cannot describe. But at the moment, I stand in a place where I just don’t understand it.