Tenba Skyline 13 Shoulder Bag Review

For light travelling or urban adventures, the Skyline certainly has appeal. Storage is plentiful for this type of bag,

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It’s good looking and feels well put together, however, I can’t help feel Tenba’s motto of ‘’never compromise’’ has been overlooked slightly.

Overall it is a good bag which will certainly do the job but there could have been a couple of improvements made to its functionality.

Shoulder Bag / Tenba.com / £59

With a modern and stylish design, the Skyline 13 protects your camera gear whilst out on location.

For those unaware, the brand Tenba was founded in 1977 over in New York. The urban feel and look that the new range of Skyline bags offer fit in well with their heritage.

There are currently 13 different bags in the new Skyline range and this one is the biggest of the shoulder bags.

The exterior of the bag features water repellent fabrics which in my opinion look fantastic!

On the top you will find a carry handle and a long and thin zipped compartment.

To the front, there is another zipped compartment, perfect for bigger items – ipad, wallet or filters etc.

I am happy to say that both sides of the bag have an elasticated pouch to house a drinks bottle or any other accessories you may have.

Going inside the bag there are several dividers to customise your setup and you’ll find two more elasticated pouches for storage underneath the lid.

Overall, the build quality is fantastic, it feels durable and well put together.

The weather proofing was accidently put to the test during a short spell of rain whilst I was out and the fabrics held up well.

However, this made me notice the lack of a rain cover and whilst I’ve not had it out during a serious downpour I can’t say for certain how water resistant the bag is, but I don’t think it would fare so well.

The material used inside the bag feels similar to a rain coat and isn’t very pleasing to the touch.

Running across the two longest sides – along the middle and along the bottom, are soft strips for the Velcro dividers.

This is a shame as they aren’t very wide, meaning the dividers only have a small surface area to grip onto.

If the entire innards were made of a soft material, not only would the dividers have more to grip onto, but you would have unlimited options when it came your configurations.

This design flaw lets it down compared to some of the competition.

Obviously this bag isn’t designed for carry large quantities of equipment, so the times I did take it out I packed my Nikon f-801 + 28mm f/2.8 + Laowa 105mm f/2.

This left me enough room to include my filters, spare film and a powerbank for my phone. I still had room for another 1 or 2 lenses, but as said already, it is limiting what you can do with those dividers.

Another frustrating thing were the two pouches under the main lid. Some of my items would constantly fall out whenever I opened the bag, surely it would have been logical to secure these with zippers? Other than that, it does what it’s supposed to.

Tenba have created a lovely looking bag which I’m sure will suit the needs of many photographers, however, they could have knocked it out of the park if it wasn’t for the issues I came across.

£59 isn’t going to break the bank, but there are other options available which I feel offer more for less money.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the Skyline is a good bag, however, it could have been great.