I’ve been reviewing camera gear for over 15 years now. Every now and again, I think back about products and brands that the site hasn’t featured in a while. So on a random whim, I thought about one specific company: Vinta. Vinta, in the 2010s, was a company that was trying to make a very aesthetic and functional camera bag. The first bag they made was one of my favorites, and I enjoyed wearing it in the face of the average tech-bro calling himself a camera-guy that loved to sport Peak Design backpacks. If this were a fairy tale, I’d called the Vinta S the fairest bag in the land at the time. But Vinta faded away, and more importantly, lots of folks never got their bags.
I decided to do some searching about Vinta. Their website isn’t functional anymore. and a Reddit thread seems to indicate that they were a scam. In fact, I remember when I was reviewing their products that many people were wondering whether or not they’d ever get them. As of three years ago, Vinta’s Kickstarter for their latest camera bag still has comments on it.
With enough time passing now, I have to say that I’m not surprised. I remember meeting with the founder at a Lomography event and him being incredibly defensive about his product to the point of being very threatening. As a journalist, I’ve received death threats before, and this nearly felt like he wanted to kill me or do some serious harm to me.
In the end, it seems like Vinta closed up shop, didn’t tell anyone, and just took the money. The founder, Victor Soto, can’t really be found online at all.
When I reviewed their latest bag back in 2017, I was pretty livid. The brand made a backpack that took some of the best things from the original and totally gutted it. There are similar things that have felt just as much as a knife being twisted inside of me. For example, there’s Fujifilm’s lack of emphasis on photographers-first. With Canon, there’s basically everything. With Sony, it’s how they purposely weakened the autofocus of the Sony a7r series to make the other cameras more viable.
What Vinta did was a smack in the face to anyone who wanted to call themselves a customer.
So why is this article called, “the Worst Camera Bag I ever Reviewed?” Well, it’s simple. Vinta took a highly acclaimed design and threw it out probably based on some very terrible advice. Then they ran out of money, took whatever they had left, and ran.
The worst thing about this is that people were scammed out of their money.
In hindsight, I’m proud that the Phoblographer never sold out the way that so many influencers only try to write about things or make videos just for hype. In my last review of the company’s products, I stated that I care a lot about us being honest and transparent.
In the end, I believe I didn’t even give the Vinta backpack away. I think I threw it out.