ONA has always created beautiful and simplistic camera bags. And today’s announcement of the Leather Price Street is no exception to their award winning lineup. Designed for street photographers and those with a more mobile/guerilla oriented shooting style, we’re sure that any shooter would wear this bag with pride.
With a full leather exterior, superb interior padding, and a suggested retail price of $389 we’d like to remind you at this point in the article to please ensure that the drool from your mouth doesn’t hit the keyboard–that’s just unattractive and embarrassing when you take it in for repair and tell the techs.
Pros and Cons
Pros
– ONA’s sexiest bag yet
– Forces you to keep the camera package to a minimum
– Really quick access to your gear
– The ideal bag for the street photographer
Cons
– A tad pricy
– We wish we saw a bit more innovation to the product.
Gear Used
We tested the Leather Prince Street with Sony headphones, an Apple iPad, the Fujifilm X Pro 1, Olympus OMD EM5 and various lenses in addition to the Nikon D810 with the Tokina 70-200mm f4 Pro lens.
Tech Specs
From ONA’s press release
Suggested Retail: $389
The Leather Prince Street combines a refined messenger bag silhouette with the conveniences of a traditional camera bag. Handcrafted with Italian leather that has a gorgeous, well-traveled aesthetic, the Leather Prince Street comfortably accommodates an 11-inch laptop or tablet, a camera, up to two lenses and small personal items. A slim removable top-grab handle and a streamlined back pocket offer added convenience and style.
Exterior Dimensions: 12.5″L X 10″H X 4.5″D l Interior Dimensions: 12″L X 9″H X 4″D l Weight: 3.3 lbs Colors: Antique Cognac (ONA024LBR), Dark Truffle (ONA024LDB)
Ergonomics
ONA’s Prince St is a small and thin messenger bag designed for the photographer on the go and the more mobile oriented shooter. As a result, it won’t fit a 13″ Macbook–but an iPad or an 11″ computer could make this bag their home. This is the leather version–which is higher in price and understandably sexier.
As if typical to ONA, they used brass in the construction of the buttons and fasteners.
The bag has an equally beautiful strap with it that includes the appropriate amount of comfort in the padding. While the strap is beautiful, it can surely create a sweat band across your shirt when out during hot summer days.
On the inside, you’ll find two front pockets, dividers for lenses, cameras, and more, and another slot to house that laptop or an iPad. There is nothing particularly special or game changing here–so don’t expect it.
The Prince St can also house an iPad or other documents and thin objects in its back pocket. It makes for a great every day bag–especially in NYC. With my iPad stuffed in the back, I was able to plug my headphones in and listen to music while my phone didn’t waste battery power. Additionally, it made for quick access to my iPad when it came to reading a book on the subway.
The bag was designed primarily for the use of mirrorless cameras, though with some modifications and stretching it can accommodate a DSLR. To be honest though, we wouldn’t want to mess with the bag’s already beautiful looks.
Build Quality
In our two weeks of testing, we found the bag to be sturdy and resilient to the elements. It was bumped around the NYC subway system by commuters while attached to my body, and protected the gear thanks to the padding that ONA supplies in the dividers. Where I believe that ONA could have improved is in the strap adjustment. As you adjust the strap, the padded area isn’t able to move to the section that you may want it at. And for that reason, we often had to keep the bag in a single position–which was usually slung around and with the bag behind us. For the extra paranoid shooter, you may want to be aware of this since the bag won’t always be in your peripheral line of sight.
To be fair, when it is hugging your body that closely, you should be able to know what’s going on.
Ease of Use
This bag was designed to be simplistic and beautiful but still not scream out to the world that you’re a photographer. Indeed, it doesn’t quite say that but its natural good looks may surely have onlookers curious to begin with. There are no secret compartments or anything really particularly special about the bag besides the fact that it is designed to keep your kit to a minimum. And for the most part, it does its job quite well.
Conclusions
ONA’s camera bags are beautiful–and the Prince St is no exception. It does its job well: which is concealing your cameras and doing it in style. But for the most part, the Prince St is just ONA’s other bags (like the Union St) except smaller. And for that, we think that ONA needs to start adding a bit more functionality and innovation to their camera bags. Don’t get us wrong: this isn’t at all a bad product. But to also be fair, the company has been around for years and seems to be singing the same song over and over again.
For that, the ONA Prince Street doesn’t deserve bashing. It’s still a wonderful product–but we wanted to see more out of it.
We award the ONA Price Street 3 out of 5 stars.
