Lowepro’s Workshop Tips
#5 How to make the most of your All Weather Cover
Your Lowepro camera bag was built and designed to protect your camera gear through the toughest situations and the most challenging assignments. It is built not only to be useful and comfortable, but also to be durable so that it can last longer, reducing both our and your environmental impact.
That's why we have created Lowepro Workshop Tips, a series of guides on how to maintain, repair, and refresh the integrity and functionality of your camera bag, so it can have a longer life.
Your Lowepro bag is your companion on memorable adventures, and we want to preserve it not just for the memories, but also to reduce our environmental impact.
Lowepro’s Workshop Tip #5
Our All Weather Covers, AWCs for short, are like shower caps for your bag. All of our AWCs have a Durable Water Repellent coating and are fully seam sealed for added protection. Lowepro bags that say AW on the name label come with an AWC. If your bag didn’t come with an AWC or it’s disappeared you can find a replacement on our webstore. They’re available in 3 sizes so you can get the right fit for your pack. All our bags have a DWR exterior treatment and a PU interior coating so they’re safe in light rain. For heavier rain use your AWC to cover your whole pack, especially the zippers, which is the first place moisture will start to get into an unprotected bag.
There are a few places we put AWCs, wherever yours is located you’ll see our AWC icon 
Most of our newer bags have the AWC inside in a pocket or clipped to a loop, this makes it easy to remove for drying. On many of our older bags you’ll find it in a pocket on the bottom of the bag. Side note, if you have a bottom pocket AWC and you’re having trouble with your bag not standing up, it often helps to repack your AWC to make it even and flat.
This is the process I usually use to put the AWC on.
#1 Start by wrapping the AWC around the corners at the bottom of the backpanel
#2 Pull the AWC up over the front
#3 Wrap the AWC over the corners at the top of the backpanel.
(If it’s a shoulder bag you may also need to reattach the shoulder strap through the dedicated passthrough slot in the cover)
#4 Check the fit to make sure it’s covering all the corners and zippers.
(Even with the cover on a bag it’s important to be aware of what is and isn’t covered. This is especially true on back access bags since the AWC generally doesn’t cover the back side)
On some of our larger backpacks, like ProTrekker, there are some adjusters that you can tighten down to snug the cover to the bag. These are particularly helpful if you’re using the AWC over tripods or other gear attached to the outside of your pack.
Besides weather protection, our AWC is great for some other things.
- Keep your bag clean when put it down in wet grass or mud;
- A dry place for you to sit;
- A mat for organizing your gear;
- A quick cover for kneeling in mud when you don’t want to put on rain pants.