Owner contribution
I've had the weekend to play with my new UD40 and I can say that it's a fine bag. As promised, it's nondescript - maybe a little too nondescript for my personal vanity - but it's smaller than I expected, looks like a laptop bag but is too small to be one. Just a basic, black satchel. There's loads of pockets - in the front flap, there's a full width pocket with some pen holders and inside it, another "secret" pocket, ostensibly for passports, tickets, etc. Underneath the flap, there's two bellowed pockets that are lightly padded and can each hold a DSLR body, even with grip attached. Behind that is another full-width pocket with loads of internal organizer pockets. Since the pocket doesn't have any actual depth, it fills up rather quickly (especially if there's camera gear in the main pocket) but it still holds a fair bit. There's also a removable strap that attaches to the included PeeWee memory card holder. Nice. On each side is another very stretchy pocket capable of holding a flash, water bottle, what have you. On the back are another couple pockets - one wide enough to hold a regular-sized magazine or papers, and the other does double duty as a luggage roller strap thing. It also zips up at the bottom allowing you to use it as another pocket. The main inside pocket comes with a slew of removable padded dividers. There's two kinds - ones covered with the hook-side velcro material and ones covered with nylon and velcro ends. For the former, there's two tall ones for the sides, a hard padded base and two more tall ones with a built-in fold so you can attach them straight up or as L-shapes. For the latter, there's two tall pieces, three medium and three short, all of which can be used vertically or horizontally. This system allows you to cram a lot of stuff in the bag by stacking though it doesn't make for the easiest access to everything if you do fill it all up. Finally, the inside velcro wall of the main compartment is really just a divider, as on the other side there's another flat pocket where the rain cover is stored. Happily, unlike Lowepro, the cover is completely removable thus freeing up some more storage space and reducing unnecessary bulk (assuming you know it's not going to rain). I was able to fit a lot of gear in this bag - more than I would ever take with me for shooting, but it fit. In it, I had my Canon 30D with Tamron 17-50 f2.8 attached, Canon 70-200 f2.8L, Sigma 10-20, Sigma 30f1.4, Canon 100mm macro f2.8, Canon 85mm f1.8 and Canon 50mm f1.8 mk2 as well as a 430EX Flash in the side pocket and plenty of various bits and bobs in the other pockets. And if I needed to, I could have detached the camera, put it in the front pocket and probably fit another couple lenses in there. But as heavy as it was with all that gear in there, it actually didn't feel that heavy and certainly didn't look that heavy. There was no bulging of the bag, it kept pretty much the same profile as it did empty. And the strap did a great job of lightening the load. My only complaint about the strap, and it's not something I'd have expected Think Tank to account for, but since the pad doesn't slide on the strap - it's fixed in the middle - it's a bit tricky to cycle with it on. The pad ends up over my chest when I have the bag swung around back. Oh well. I spent a good, long time trying to decide on what bag to get - I wanted something small, discrete and low-profile - yet easy to work out of. I had been using a Timbuk2 messenger bag with Domke inserts and while it did and still does work pretty well, it was a pretty big bag and sometimes the load didn't distribute itself as well as I'd have liked. It's nice to have a dedicated bag for shooting that doesn't look like a camera bag and has room for non-camera stuff. It's not a cheap bag by any means but the build quality is top-notch and it does everything promised. Very happy with the purchase.
