I’ve had a messenger bag as my photography bag for most of my amateiur photographer career for the past 15 years. They are stylish and I fit everything in.
But now I feel when I have it on my the whole day my neck afterwards hurt a lot on the one side, like really a lot.
I mostly take my camera with me when we go travel with the family, we have two children and I have to carry the little one constantly.
This leads to me sometimes not to bring my camera because it’s just to hurtful. And then I regret it every time I look at the phone pictures.
I guess it’s time for a travel camera backpack …
Edit: I have a lot of things to carry, the Sony A7C body, a 35mm f1.8, a 70-200 f4, and a small cheap pancake lens. Then strong usb-c charger which I use for charging phone, camera and laptop. Sometimes I bring the laptop also.
As a beginner I had only one lens (tamron 28-200) and a a7c so it was compact enough to fit in a hip bag from a motorcycle gear shop. Pretty comfy.
Now that I have multiple lenses I just tried a messenger bag and quickly get the neck pain. So I’m also thinking about a backpack and keeping the hip bag depending on the journey.