How do you fly with your gear?

I'll chime in, as I've toiled over this very topic for too long. For now I think I've solved my puzzle after picking up the Tenba large messenger bag. I fly a LOT, so efficiency is the name of the game (no checked luggage). I have a roller that houses my clothes, necessities and tripod The rest of my gear and laptop in my Tenba large messenger. I don't want to wrestle with a loose tripod and my Slik Pro 340DX fits perfectly in my roller carryon. I've never once had an issue with TSA.

With my two carryon bags (roller, and Tenba), I have my tripod and a lot of gear. To give you an idea: For this trip I brought my 50D, 15" laptop, Sigma 50-150, Canon 100-400, Sigma 50 1.4, Canon 15-85, 430EX flash, extras + my Archos 5....(highly recommend for anyone who travels a lot...2 big thumbs up!).
What I like about the Tenba bag, is it eliminates an extra bag for me. I typically I pack my gear in one bag, and stash my "walkaround" bag in my larger carryon. The Tenba's big enough to bring a substantial amount of gear to get you to your destination, yet small enough to "work out of" once you get there. I don't like shooting out of a backpack, so that wasn't an option for me. I live with a laptop bag on my shoulder, so the Tenba feels right at home for me, and the THICK large padded shoulder strap is really, really nice (not mentioning other features).

I concur that there is no "perfect" bag, although my current travel setup is not far off from perfect for my needs. Can't wait to use it on my trip to Cozumel in 3 weeks!

Scott_1469 wrote in post #11677305
I concur that there is no "perfect" bag, although my current travel setup is not far off from perfect for my needs.

yeah, I think that's the biggest lesson in this thread and also why I'm just looking at what others use to see if it might work for me or not. Your setup Scott sounds great for you, simple, 2 bags, one of them a roller in the overhead, very nice. But for me it wouldn't work at all?

Have a great trip though, I'm jealous!

I tend to take every bit of gear that I know Ill need on as a carry-on and avoid checking it when I can, Im just afraid that it will get lost or damaged and then Ill be screwed on a shoot. I just orderd the Thinktank Airport Security bag but have yet to recive it. But I have heard nonthing but good things about it, you can pack a ton of gear in it and it fits on the overhead of the plane.

As carry-on I I use the biggest Lovepro backback that has the camera section on the bottom, laptop in the back and random junk on top. I never had any trouble with security or damage. The Lovepro backback itself is of disappointing quality, it's a couple levels below the quality of my stealth reporter.

I had this problem from my recent month long trip from India. We were travelling with our 2year old son. On the way back I took standard roller carry on bag, and put my tamrac velocity bag inside the roller. And there was room left over for my son's stuff. When I fly with my son, I try to take the bare minimum of my gear.

Brandon Anderson Photos wrote in post #11737384
I tend to take every bit of gear that I know Ill need on as a carry-on and avoid checking it when I can, Im just afraid that it will get lost or damaged and then Ill be screwed on a shoot. I just orderd the Thinktank Airport Security bag but have yet to recive it. But I have heard nonthing but good things about it, you can pack a ton of gear in it and it fits on the overhead of the plane.

Frankly, I prefer the Tamrac Expedition series to the ThinkTank Airport. I think the Tamrac's are much better made and have all the same features and carryon capacity of the Thinktanks. I looked at the Airport Security at Adorama and didn't like it; went to B&H and bought the Tamrac Expedition. Just MHO.

I'm actually going to be flying with my (small) collection of gear soon and I'm working on buying a somewhat bigger bag to carry it in (my current one is just too small). I'll be putting my camera, lens, chargers, P&S (for emergencies), filters, external hard drives, mic, whatever other accessories I have, and things I would usually keep in my purse in the messenger I plan on ordering to slip under the seat in front of me, and then I'll have my laptop and a few other things in a backpack in the overhead bin.

tvphotog wrote in post #11737432
Frankly, I prefer the Tamrac Expedition series to the ThinkTank Airport. I think the Tamrac's are much better made and have all the same features and carryon capacity of the Thinktanks. I looked at the Airport Security at Adorama and didn't like it; went to B&H and bought the Tamrac Expedition. Just MHO.

I was just going on with the info that I recived from my friends that have the bag to base my choice on, If its good enough for them then why not give it a shot. I should get the bag on monday and Ill write up my thoughts from there.