Review - Think Tank Photo Airport Roller Derby - A Roller Bag for Mirrorless?

While most mirrorless shooters would be content with a small backpack or sling bag to hold their gear, I've found that a lot of times having the right sized rolling bag is much better, especially when shooting weddings.

Back when I was still shooting with Canon DSLRs, I lugged everything around with the Think Tank Airport Security 2.0.  This is still one of the best camera roller bags I've ever owned - it holds a TON of gear:



When I switched over to Sony mirrorless cameras, I found that the Airport Security 2.0 was now too big for my needs.  Since the majority of the interior of the bag is around 8" deep, the smaller lenses of the Sony system like the 55mm f1.8 Zeiss just disappear.

There's a lens in here somewhere . . .

... there it is!

So I started looking around for a smaller roller bag that would be better suited for the smaller bodies and lenses. Then I looked at Think Tank Photo's Airport Roller Derby Rolling Camera Case.

Smaller, shallower, and nearly 3 pounds lighter than the Airport Security 2.0, the Airport Roller Derby is almost perfect for a professional mirrorless shooter.

This bag holds everything I take to a typical wedding shoot:

Sony a7RII body + battery grip
Sony a7II body + battery grip
Sony A6300 body
10-18mm f4 Sony lens
16-35mm f4 FE Zeiss lens
24-70mm f4 FE Zeiss lens
70-200mm f4 FE Sony G lens
85mm f1.4 FE Sony G Master lens
55mm f1.8 FE Zeiss lens
35mm f2.8 FE Zeiss lens
30mm f3.5 Sony Macro lens
Phottix Mitros+ flash (2)
Phottix Odin transmitter
Think Tank Pixel Pocket Rocket with 10 SDXC cards
Sony USB portable power supply
12" iPad Pro + Apple Pencil
13" Macbook Air + power supply
10 Sony batteries
Sony Battery charger
Rotolight Neo LED light

All of this fits perfectly in the Roller Derby, and still leaves room for more.

Like the Airport Security, the Roller Derby comes with a TSA padlock and an integrated cable in an external pocket.

While the zippers are lockable, the bag does not include the handy integrated TSA lock for main compartment like the Airport Security 2.0

Integrated lock on the Airport Security

Not on the Roller Derby

Most of the central space in the Roller Derby is about 7" deep and the sides are about 8" deep.

While you might think a one inch shallower depth (compared to the deeper Airport Security) is minor, it makes a huge difference when accessing the smaller lenses of mirrorless systems.

The two a7 series bodies with battery grips fit perfectly in the deeper sides of the bag.

They are also deep enough to make dual layers, which is what we did for our two Phottix flashes.

Because of the way the Roller Derby is designed, the bottom of the main compartment actually extends past the zippered opening by about an inch. This means there is a slight overhang which is something to keep in mind when configuring the layout of your gear.

You probably will not want to put smaller things like your card wallet in that part of the bag as it will be difficult to get to. I chose to let the longer items like the 70-200 lens and the Phottix flashes use up most of that space.  The 85mm in the middle is a little difficult to get out at times, so I'm still experimenting with the organization.

When it comes to airline travel, my absolute favorite feature of this bag is the 4 wheeled design. 

On every flight I've been on, both inter-island and international, the aisles are just barely wider than the width of your typical two wheeled carry-on suitcase. Since most rolling camera cases are similarly sized, they just barely fit through the aisle of the plane and then only if you roll it in the exact center of the aisle.

Whenever I rolled a two wheeled camera case behind me when getting off on or off the plane, it would almost always end up catching a stray hanging seatbelt buckle and cause me to stop and make everyone behind me wait while I untangled it.

Eventually I got tired of this happening and just started carrying the bag in front of me to save time whenever we exited the plane, which kind of defeated the purpose of having carry-on luggage with wheels in the first place.

With the four wheeled design of the Roller Derby, this is no longer an issue. By simply rotating the bag and rolling it in front of me, it easily glides down the center of the aisle with lots of space on either side.

If you're a mirrorless shooter in the market for a rolling camera case, I highly recommend checking out the Think Tank Airport Roller Derby.   While it doesn't have some of the features of the larger Airport Security 2.0,  the more compact size is better suited for the smaller bodies of mirrorless systems.  If you travel a lot, you will REALLY appreciate the 4-wheeled design.

If you purchase this or any other Think Tank Photo products via the links on this page, you help support this site and make it possible to continue to do reviews like this. Mahalo!

Quick Tip - Formatting your cards in camera

Before every photoshoot, one of the items on our checklist is to format the CF cards in-camera.  We always check first to make sure that the previous shoot on the CF cards is backed up in at least 3 different places (hard drive, CD, online - you can never be too careful) before we format the cards.

One little tip about formatting the cards in-camera before a shoot.  Immediately after you format the card, it's a good idea to change the menu item to something other than "Format".  I'm not sure how it is on Nikons, but on Canon cameras, whenever you press the "Menu" button, it always goes to the last thing you selected in the menu.

If you left it on "Format" and hit the "Set" button while in the menu, you are just a couple of clicks away from erasing everything on your card. When you are running and gunning, like at a wedding, it's all too easy to forget. The LAST thing you want to do is to accidentally format a card in the middle of a shoot.

After formatting a card in the camera, I'll usually move the menu selection to the top of the Tools page,

then tab over to the next screen and select something harmless like "Highlight Alert" (in case I want to turn off the blinking highlight warning when showing the image on the back of the camera to a client.).  This greatly reduces the possibility of dumb old me accidentally formatting the card.

It takes less than a few seconds to do this, and once you get into the habit of doing it, you'll save yourself a lot of potential aggravation.

Eye-Fi Pro + MacBook Nano

I really like shooting tethered to the computer during a photo session because it allows for greater collaboration. Having the images come up on the computer screen during the shoot makes it much easier for everyone - the makeup artist can check for touchups, the model can refine her poses, the stylist can fix any stray hairs, and the photographer can check lighting and focus. It's also much easier on the eyes than having everyone crowd around the tiny LCD on the back of the camera.

My usual setup for model photo sessions is a 15" MacBook Pro, a 19" LCD external monitor, a Canon 5D, and the Canon WFT-E1 transmitter which sends the images from the camera to the computer over WiFi. I like it because there's no cables, which makes it easier for the photographer to move around to get the shot.


While this is great for shoots in studio, it's not that great when you're out in the field, especially at the beach. Sand gets into everything and you're always having to keep an eye on your gear in case it decides to grow legs and walk away from you.

I had been looking for a lower cost solution to use in the field. It took a while, but I found the solution in two parts - a Mac netbook and a wireless SD card.

Netbooks have become very popular recently, due to their low cost and their ability to do about 90% of what most people use a computer for - browsing the web, checking email, viewing video clips, etc.

Apple still doesn't make a netbook, so many people have taken to hacking low cost netbooks such as the Dell Mini 9, Lenovo S10, and MSI Wind to run Mac OS X. You can see a list of compatible netbooks here.

I chose to use the Dell Vostro A90, as it was available from Dell for less than $200, and is pretty much the same as the now discontinued Mini 9 in that it is one of the most compatible netbooks to run OS X on.

I found a very easy to follow guide for installing Mac OS X on this netbook. Once I installed 2 GB of RAM and a 64GB SSD, I had it up and running within a day.

It boots up and runs pretty quickly due to the SSD. I have Photoshop & Lightroom installed on it (Yes, the netbook DOES run Photoshop) and I am planning to use it in the field (the screen is only 8 inches so I'm mainly using it just to check the shots as they go into the computer). This will save a lot of wear and tear on my 15" MacBook Pro.


The next part was the wireless solution. The Canon WFT-E1 is a pretty big unit which attaches to the bottom of the camera via USB or Firewire. It's very bulky and expensive (about $1000). Canon has since come out with newer versions of this device which incorporate the Wifi transmitter into the extended grip for cameras such as the 5D MkII, the 40D and 50D.


A few years ago a company called Eye-Fi came out with an SD memory card for around $100 that included built in wifi capability. It was a pretty amazing product at the time (WiFi from an SD memory card? Wow!), it was very limited in that you needed an internet connection for it to work. It was mainly intended for consumers to upload images directly to the web from the camera. While you could upload from your camera to your computer, both had to be on the same wireless network, meaning you needed a router for the connection to work. It unfortunately did not support ad-hoc connections directly between the camera and the computer.

Thankfully, a few months ago they introduced the Eye-Fi Pro - a 4GB SDHC WiFi card ($149.99) that DOES support ad-hoc connections. This now does about the same thing as my WFT-E1, but for about $850 less.

It took some time to get it setup properly. You need to use a web browser and connect to their website to do the initial setup for the card. Firefox gave me some problems when I tried to switch on the adhoc connection on the netbook to set it up in the Eye-Fi manager software. But once I got it worked out (hint - use Safari to do the web setup), it was smooth sailing. The Eye-Fi website has a forum which was a big help in getting the problems worked out.

So now with this setup, it looks ready to roll. On the Mac netbook, I go to the menu and select "Create Network" and set up an ad hoc connection. I insert the Wifi Pro card into my Canon Powershot G9, turn it on, and we're good to go. I click the shutter and after about 12 seconds, the images pop up in Lightroom. The Eye-Fi Pro supports transmitting both JPEG and RAW files, but for now I'm just having it send the JPEGs to the computer for preview purposes only (I transfer the RAWs from the card back at the office)

I showed this to my buddy Chaz from After6Media, and his first reaction was "I gotta get this!" ;-)

In preliminary distance testing, I was able to get the camera to transmit from a distance of about 70 feet (couldn't test out further because that was the length of the room I was in at the time)

I haven't tried it with my regular cameras yet, as they use CompactFlash media instead of SDHC cards. I do have an SDHC to CompactFlash adapter card that I will use to test in my 5D. I'm also thinking of using it in my 1D MkII which has slots for both CompactFlash and SDHC.

With the Mac netbook, the Eye-Fi Pro, my Canon G9 and a Strobist light kit however, I think I may have found the ultimate mobile mini studio. I'll be testing this out in the field in a couple weeks and will post the results.