My review of the Tenba Shootout Sling Bag (Med).
I got this bag hoping to use it on my vacation coming up. I was disappointed once i got it loaded up with my gear (read on to find out why!!). Unfortunately, my quest for a good travel bag continues, and looks like I have to return this bag. Tenba has definately built a solid bag here, only problem is the lack of attention to detail. There is room for MUCH improvement in my opinion. Overall, great bag, but the design flaws present are enough to drive my crazy.
Front view. This bag is a fairly simple looking bag, not like the Kata 3in1 series, where you dont know what is where and the bag itself just looks very busy. This Tenba however, is VERY well build. SOLID. It definately feels better built than Crumpler bags, as well as Kata bags (which feel kinda cheap, and plasticy to me). Actually, I think this bag might have better build quality than Lowepro (*gasp!!*). The outside of this bag, definately feels better than the Lowepro's with the thin nylon like stuff. The bag in itself also feels like it will repel water quite well.
Here you can see how the top slopes down, and the side sling access opening.
Height of the bag. Definately smaller than the Crumpler Karachi Outpost. Great size, holds a lot of gear considering its size.
All the zippers on the Shootout Sling are these "YKK" zippers. They claim to be the strongest zippers around. To me they just look like regular high end zippers with a special thin rubber flap on the outside of the zipper. They can be difficult to use at first, but you'll get used to it pretty quickly (see next pic). Overall they look like they'll be able to resist water entering into the compartment pretty well. Very good weather sealing.
All zippers have this pull string attached. People have complained the zippers have been difficult to open, I can see this happening, especially if you do not use the pull strings. Sometimes the zippers are still "sticky" or stiff even if you pull using the strings. But it's good to know my gear is well protected from dust and rain.
Here's the top compartment open. Large enough to fit a D300 (w/ grip) with a 18-200mm VR (no hood attached).
Vertical view of the top compartment.
Elastic compression straps can hold an umbrella, or a thin (very thin) jacket.
Thick rubber Tenba logo on the bottom front of the bag.
Bottom of the bag has two heavy duty rubber feet. If the ground is lightly wet or damp, these will keep the bottom of the bag high enough off the ground to keep the fabric from getting wet. Also in the centre of the bag, there is a pull loop to pull the bag from normal carry position on the back, to the sling access position.
Very thin compartment, not a lot of space here. The weather cover came stored in this compartment. I can't see much of anything being fit in here. I don't think you could even fit a book in here. At most you could fit a few filters in here, nothing too thick, only thin items can go in here.
Tenba weather cover. This cover has a nice logo imprinted on it. I like how the cover is not attached to the bag itself, so it can be taken out and washed when dirty. But, having this cover loose from the bag itself, with no option to attach it could make it easy to lose for those who are absent minded. It would have been nice to see the cover have some sort of a carry pouch of some sort.
Good attention to detail; a well designed part of the cover, this part attaches to the carry handle so the cover wont be accidentally pulled off. It is attached via a button.
This is a slit that is cut out of the weather cover, it slides through the bottom buckle, again to keep the cover in place so it can't be pulled off accidentally while the bag is on your back.
Well padded, stiff backing. Good support considering it is a sling bag. But the support itself is a bit useless (more on this later). It probably works better as protection for the gear inside, rather than a cushion for your back while carrying.
This is the strap at the top. VERY wide. This is to distribute the weight better. Although this is supposed to help with weight distribution, i don tthink this part was designed too well (more on this later).
On the middle of the strap, there is this phone pouch. Appearantly large enough to fit an iPhone (ewww) or a Blackberry. It's a fairly well designed pouch, but Tenba overlooked the placement of this pouch. It is not removeable, and I find, just from testing fitting the bag, that it can get in the way. While carrying the bag on your back, if the strap is not VERY tight, this pouch will end up hitting your face/chin area. This is extremely annoying.
If you were to draw the camera, it would be from this access door. Again, you must go through the "rubberized" zippers to access this door. This is one major flaw of all sling bags. This compartment will most likyle hold your camera RIGHT when you open it. While traveling, a skilled pick-pocketer, would be able to unzip this fairly easily without the wearer knowing. Albiet, the YKK zippers will definately hinder them, but in general, with all slingbags, this is a major point on the "Cons" list, and will stop many from purchasing a slingbag.
Here's the compartment again. The access opening is large enough to fit a D300 with the grip attached. So essentially, it will be large enough for a full sized DSLR, such as a D3.
Side door comparment. Thin objects only.
Very tight to get into, but you can see two memory card holders designed mainly for CF cards. At least that's what it looks like.
Large buckle. Feels a bit flimsey, but im pretty sure it will hold up well to extensive use.
If you need to see all your gear at once, you can just unzip the entire back, to reveal an "ariel view" of the entire bag.
Here's the top compartment, as viewed from the back opening. The floor of this compartment, is a thick, stiff velcro attached piece that, when removed, transforms the entire bag into one large bag. If you remove this "floor" and everything else. you can fit up to a 300mm tele, attached to a full sized DSLR. Although Tenba only claims 300mm, i have a feeling it can fit up to a 400mm in many cases.
Top view of the entire bag. When I first got this bag, I thought it be great, i can load everything into the lower compartment. I was wrong. Although it has a LOT of room in here. It is just too square to fit your gear in efficiently. Unfortunately I was unable to show this, since i needed my camera to shoot these pics.
The main issue, is that you have to pack the bag so that you can access all of your important gear (which is pretty much everything), from the side compartment, AS WELL AS, from the back opening. This makes things VERY difficult. Most bags, you just worry about loading it in one dimension. With this bag, and presumably, other slingbags, you need to pack with two dimensions in mind; accessability from the side, as well as from the back. Albeit, you could just pack it with the side access in mind, but that would defeat the purpose of the open back. For me, after and hour and a half of trying to fit my D300 w/ grip w/ 18-200 VR attached, a 10-20mm, a 50mm, and a sb800. I was very disappointed as i was still unable to pack it so that I could have fast access to all my gear, from both the side, AND the back.
The dividers are also very poorly designed and not thought out too well. The dividers have different widths, but are all the same height. This is absolutely pointless if you are trying to make a smaller compartment to hold smaller items, since sometimes the dividers will stick out past the rest of the dividing walls. Especially when you are trying to fit your gear so that it is accessable from both openings. Note that this pic shows all the dividers, and they all come to the same height. If I kept this bag, and set the dividers as such, i would not be able to access any of the comparments on the left side of this pic, through the side access door.
That is a SB-800. As you can see, it sticks out a bit, so that gives you an idea of just how deep this bag is.
The side access door is pretty much the entire height of this compartment. The SB-800 is there to demonstrate how large that is.
Tripod holder.
Closer view of the tripod holder.
Most of the time, simple is good. This wasn't one of those times. The compression straps are very sturdy, but they tend to move around when you are trying to tighten the tripod down. Instead of tightening when you pull, they just slide around. I think some buckles would've been a better touch here.
Bag is comfortable when it's empty. Too bad it didn't feel as good when it was weighted with my gear.
Remember the cushion on the back of the bag? It was straight grooves down the bag for spine support. Last I checked, my spine wans't this crooked. Tenba states that this bag will be slanted slightly; this looks more like the leaning tower of Pisa on my back! This was EXTREMELY ANNOYING, as it did NOT distribute the weight well AT ALL!!!!
Pulling the bag to the "draw" position.
As you can see here, the pouch is touching my chin. This is enough to drive my insane. Even if i fully tighten the main strap, this bag sags off my shoulder, causing the phone holder to hit my face. Talk about major design flaw. If you have wide shoulders, like me. Don't get this bag. If i were super skinny with thin shoulders, then maybe this wouldn't have been as bad. Overall weight distribution is very wierd. Feel of a weighted bag is also very wierd since the bag is on a major slant. The main strap also slips a lot, so unless it's bolted onto your body, it is very uncomfortable. I would personally prefer messgner style, or traditional (Domke, or Lowepro "reporter styled") bags to this one, especially if I was to get a single strap bag.
This puny little extra strap is supposed to ease the weight of carrying your gear on one sholder. It helps a bit, but just a bit. I would almost never use it. The little strap itself gets in the way constantly if your just moving the bag around and not using the main strap.
