Billingham 550 Long-Term Review
This was the first proper production bag from Billingham back in the late 1970s, famously bought by either Terence Donovan or David Bailey for Patrick Lichfield as the cost of losing a bet. It’s a big bag, it’s a classic, and it’s the oldest piece of kit I own that I still use.
There is very little I can tell you about this bag that you can’t find online, plus the bag has been constantly updated over the years and a 2024 bag will be considerably better than my 1992 bag in a myriad of ways. But I can tell you about this particular bag, and how it’s held up over the years.
This particular bag came from Jessops in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent in late 1992, for £150, which was a huge amount of money at the time, around half the cost of a decent used camera body, and it was to fit my Canon AE1-P, T90, a 28mm, 50mm, 70-210, 300TL flash, stacks of film, filters and batteries and other loose bits. At the time, it could carry all the camera gear I owned, and quite frankly, I should have stuck to only owning what could fit in this bag.
I was 18 years old, at university in Keele and that was my first year. The next few years saw it being carted around everywhere doing multiple duties for kit and clothing alike. A biology field trip to the coast saw it sat in shallow seawater for hours at a time, and rained on from the top, and while water did wet the inner canvas material just around the riveted points at the bottom, there was no liquid whatsoever, and the structure of the bottom meant that kit was sat well above the base anyhow.
These days, the bag is rarely taken out for shooting, as I don’t carry so much gear, but it keeps valuable kit safe, mainly a Rollei SL66 and Bronica ETRSi kits. But sometimes it’s all emptied out and used as a weekend bag for travelling, because it’s so fantastic.
Many many years ago, I had a shock when a brass stud on the end pocket strap broke as I pulled it off. I rang or emailed Billingham, and they said, oh yes, we don’t use that type of stud anymore, we use much stronger ones, I’ll pop one in the post for you, and a new brass stud arrived for free that simply screwed in. Sorted.
I should have looked after the leather better, because it dried out and cracked and one part of a strap did break. The whole bag really needs to go off to Billingham for a service to replace all the damage and get anything else checked, but I can’t afford it, so I’ll just keep using it until it completely falls apart.
In the mid 2000s, we picked up a used old 335 that was clearly older than this 550, and that’s doing well too, and in 2022, I bought an Imperial Blue Hadley Pro that works perfectly as an everyday bag for the Q2, batteries, water, a Macbook Air and even more useful stuff, actually. It’s as well-made as you would expect, and has already done a tour of the Balkans and Italy with me.
The 550 is a lot more than £150 these days, but it’ll last if you look after it better than I did. The newer straps are constructed differently, but I imagine they’ll deteriorate in time as well, so a tin of dubbin will be required to keep the leather fed and healthy. Leather is tough stuff but you really do need to look after it.
Buy a Billingham and some dubbin if you’re 18 and you’ll likely use it for the rest of your life. I’ll update this in another 32 years and let you know how the bag is doing, although it might be a pile of raggedy canvas by then…
Billingham 550 Long-Term Review
