How do you fit camera gear into a one-bag setup?
Pick one body and one zoom, carried in a small sling that counts as your personal item, with the spare batteries in the sling too. US rules keep spare lithium batteries in the cabin even when the main bag is gate-checked. A Canon R8 with Canon's 210 g RF 24-50mm zoom and two spare batteries comes to 761 g. The cost is the personal-item slot: the laptop moves into the main bag.
Worked example: a Canon R8 and a DJI Mini 2 against 7 kg
A poster in r/onebag put the problem plainly: "Even if it's a smaller travel camera like the Canon R8 and a small DJI Mini 2, it always feels like I have to choose between camera and clothes." The poster didn't say which zoom or prime they use. The zoom in the table is our assumption. It pairs the R8 with Canon's 210 g RF 24-50mm, a small RF zoom, and lists each item at the maker's weight. A heavier zoom raises every total below.
| Item | Listed weight | Battery rating | Share of 5.52 kg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canon EOS R8, with card and battery | 461 g (Canon) | LP-E17, 7.2 V, 1040 mAh = 7.49 Wh | 8.4% |
| Canon RF 24-50mm F4.5-6.3 IS STM | 210 g (Canon) | none | 3.8% |
| Two spare LP-E17 batteries | 2 × 45 g = 90 g (Canon store) | 7.49 Wh each | 1.6% |
| DJI Mini 2, with its battery | under 249 g (DJI) | 17.32 Wh | 4.5% |
| Two spare Mini 2 batteries | 2 × 86.2 g = 172 g (DJI) | 17.32 Wh each | 3.1% |
| Total, before the drone controller | 1,182 g | 21.4% |
The 5.52 kg is what's left of Singapore Airlines' 7 kg Economy cabin bag (Singapore Airlines) after an Osprey Farpoint 40 at 1.48 kg (Osprey). DJI's spec page doesn't list a weight for the controller, so weigh yours before you add it.
A 13-inch MacBook Air adds 1.23 kg (Apple), bringing everything to 2,412 g and leaving 3,108 g for clothes and toiletries. One commenter in the thread claimed "Camera and laptop is already more weight than most airlines allow" (rhazag). The R8, the zoom and the laptop come to 1,901 g, or 27% of a 7 kg limit. On volume, reddanit suggested getting everything else "down to sub-20l and sub-5kg" to leave "around 20l/5kg" for the laptop and camera.
Delta's carry-on page sets a 56 × 35 × 23 cm size, doesn't give a weight figure, and names "camera bag" among the approved personal items (Delta). A sling of camera gear fits that definition.
Spare batteries stay in the cabin
The FAA's battery page covers spares "for personal electronics such as cameras" and says they "must be carried in carry-on baggage only". It adds a rule that matters for one-baggers: if a carry-on is checked at the gate or planeside, "all spare lithium batteries and power banks must be removed from the bag and kept with the passenger" (FAA PackSafe). Spares kept in a sling stay with you and don't need unpacking at the aircraft door.
The size line is 100 Wh per battery, and both batteries in the table are far under it: the LP-E17 at 7.49 Wh (volts times amp-hours, the FAA's own method) and the Mini 2 at 17.32 Wh. Over 100 Wh and up to 160 Wh you need airline approval and can take two spares at most. At 100 Wh or less, the FAA doesn't set a quantity limit for spare camera batteries as long as they're for your own use; power banks are a separate case, with a two-per-person cap on international flights (see personal item vs carry-on). It still warns that "Many airlines … may have stricter quantity and Wh limits". The terminals must be covered, and the FAA lists a battery case, tape, the retail packaging, or "a battery sleeve in a camera bag" as acceptable. DJI says its Two-Way Charging Hub can also be used for battery storage.
Two spares may be more than you need. Canon rates the R8 at about 370 shots per charge on the rear screen and 220 through the viewfinder, and it charges over USB. One commenter went without spares and "just plugged the camera in to charge at night" (AmiAmiMoMo).
Strap, sling or camera cube
Three setups came up across two r/onebag threads.
The strap costs no bag space at all. One commenter spent six months with a Sony a7C and two small Samyang lenses and wrote: "I always carry the camera with a strap and no airlines question it" (TabletopParlourPalm). Their spare Samyang went in a pouch "the size of a medium apple". Another commenter simply wears a big camera through the airport "if bag space/weight is a problem" (Crazy150).
The sling is the 1.5-bag version. "Camera + 2-3 lenses in a sling bag. Clothes, laptop, toiletries in my Farpoint 40L backpack," wrote GlitteringSpace236. The OP accepted that trade: people "aren't willing to leave the camera home so they bring the sling and still fit the idea of minimalist travel" (camoj11).
A camera cube goes inside the main bag on travel days and moves to a sling or daypack for the day out. kientran carries an Olympus E-M5 III with a 12-45mm and a 17mm prime in "a small cube", and can "shove the body and 17mm easily into my 5L sling". grovemau5 fits a crop-sensor camera, "a small zoom or 2" and a drone into a 25L bag. The cube is the true one-bag option, and it suits a fare with one bag only. On a fare with two bags, the sling is better because the batteries and the camera are already out of the main bag if it gets gate-checked.
Trimming the kit: extra lenses and the drone
The firmest advice in the R8 thread came from Constantly_Panicking, who argued that the R8 isn't a real travel camera, since it's "only marginally smaller than the rest of Canon's lineup, and still uses huge RF lenses", and that a travel kit means "accepting that you're going to be unable to catch 20% of the shots you see". The 210 g RF 24-50 in the table is a counterpoint on size, and heavier zooms are the ones to question. Their test is practical: "Take only what you're comfortable carrying on a whole-day outing."
The OP replied that they want "quality equipment to create the vision and capture the image" (camoj11). In a second r/onebag thread, photographers who keep proper cameras answered by capping the lenses. dropkickpuppies has done several month-long trips with a Fujifilm X-Pro3 in a Patagonia MLC 30L, taking "never more then 2 lenses", usually just one, and one spare battery. Their problem was "more about the weight" than the space.
The drone is easier to decide on: it's 421 g with two spares, and it's worth carrying only if you know where you'll fly it. In an r/backpacking thread about a long trip, a commenter who took "a mirrorless with two lenses" on their first one "ended up using my phone for almost everything" (Super_Rush3829).
The laptop question
A camera and a laptop together make the bag heavy, and both are worth stealing. In a thread about 10 days in Europe on Delta with a camera, a zoom and a MacBook Pro, SeattleHikeBike wrote that "One camera and two lenses really aren't a big deal with an overhead sized bag" and called the laptop "a liability for security and damage as well as the extra weight." kientran uses an iPad "for ingest to Adobe cloud" in place of a laptop.
If you edit on the road, a 13-inch laptop at 1.23 kg fits the worked example with 3 kg to spare. alefeusch travels full time with "a mirrorless, 2 lenses and a MacBook air" in an Atlas Athlete. Put the laptop in the main bag and the camera in the sling, so the most expensive pieces aren't both in one place.