Think Tank Urban Disguise or Gura Gear Chobe for travel with mirrorless camera gear and a 15-inch laptop?
Asked 5/27/2013
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2 answers
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I travel frequently for work and need one carry-on personal bag that can hold both work items and a compact camera kit. My gear is a Sony NEX-6 with an 18-200mm zoom and a Zeiss 24mm f/1.8, with possible additions like a 12mm, 50mm macro, and a small flash. I also carry typical accessories, plus a 15-inch MacBook Pro, iPad, chargers/cables, wallet, glasses, and small personal items.
I’m looking for a bag with a padded camera section, space for 3–4 lenses, room for laptop/tablet and work accessories, a trolley/handle pass-through, under-seat airline fit, some weather resistance, and ideally an expandable design so it isn’t oversized when I’m carrying less camera gear.
I’ve narrowed it down to the Think Tank Urban Disguise and the Gura Gear Chobe. Has anyone compared them for this kind of mixed work-and-photo travel use?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
13y ago
2 Answers
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I found a local camera store -- Kenmore Camera of Kenmore, WA -- that carries both Think Tank and Gura Gear bags. They already had the Urban Disguise 50 and 60 in stock, and ordered a Chobe so that I could compare them all.
Both bags met most of my criteria: they have padded camera sections, room for camera accessories, room for my laptop and accessories, handle sleeves to fit on rolling carry-ons, and they're both expandable.
However, the Urban Disguise's expandability is to allow the camera compartment to grow at the top to hold larger gear. Its footprint doesn't change when it's expanded or unexpanded. The Chobe, on the other hand, expands and shrinks as a unit, so its footprint shrinks and grows. The net effect is that while I was sure I could fit the Chobe under an airline seat in its unexpanded state, I had no such confidence with the Urban Disguise 50, and was sure the 60 wouldn't fit.
I was also happier with the size of the Chobe's laptop and tablet compartments.
Neither bag was obviously weather-resistant.
I ended up choosing the Chobe. It seemed like a better piece of kit all around. When I'm traveling with all my eventual camera gear -- NEX-6, four lenses, flash, power adapter + cable, etc. -- I can expand it and store it in the overhead space. When I'm traveling lighter, I can contract it and store it under my seat, meaning I can put my rolling carry-on overhead and not have to check a bag.
I hope someone out there finds this useful!
Originally by user19407. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user19407
13y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Based on the reported hands-on comparison, both bags meet most of the requirements: padded camera storage, room for accessories and a laptop, a pass-through for rolling luggage, and expandable capacity.
The key difference is how they expand. The Think Tank Urban Disguise expands mainly upward to accommodate larger camera gear, but its overall footprint stays about the same. The Gura Gear Chobe expands and contracts as a whole, so it becomes meaningfully smaller when you’re carrying less.
For airline travel, that matters: the Chobe was considered a safer under-seat fit in its smaller configuration, while the larger Urban Disguise models were less certain for that use. So if under-seat flexibility and mixed work/photo travel are priorities, the Chobe appears to be the better match.
If you want more camera-specific volume without caring as much about shrinking the bag for lighter trips, the Urban Disguise is still a strong option. But from the comparison given, the Chobe better fits the “one bag for work plus mirrorless kit” brief.
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