How is your carry on packed? show a picture

Hi everyone

I've been reading through the post's. Trying to figure out how to best pack my photo gear for travel. I have: Canon 20D, 10/22 lens, 17/85 lens, Ikelite housing, Ikelite DS125 strobe and arm, Dorm port and std port.

From what I've read so far, most perfer carry on for most of the gear rather then a pelican or storm case as checked luggage.

I have a tamrac cyber 6 photo back pack.

Does anyone have a picture of how they pack thier carry on and has anyone had trouble with the airlines max weight with regards to the carry on? I was thinking of getting a storm case and checking it with the housing and strobe and carry on the camera. But it seems some have posted that the pelican and storm case screams "take me". I use to use a alum case (zero haliburton) years ago and never lost anything. But, alis, things have changed.

So if you could post a picture of how you pack your photo gear for travel that would be helpful.

Thanks

Hi everyone

I've been reading through the post's. Trying to figure out how to best pack my photo gear for travel. I have: Canon 20D, 10/22 lens, 17/85 lens, Ikelite housing, Ikelite DS125 strobe and arm, Dorm port and std port.

From what I've read so far, most perfer carry on for most of the gear rather then a pelican or storm case as checked luggage.

 

I have a tamrac cyber 6 photo back pack.

 

Does anyone have a picture of how they pack thier carry on and has anyone had trouble with the airlines max weight with regards to the carry on? I was thinking of getting a storm case and checking it with the housing and strobe and carry on the camera. But it seems some have posted that the pelican and storm case screams "take me". I use to use a alum case (zero haliburton) years ago and never lost anything. But, alis, things have changed.

 

So if you could post a picture of how you pack your photo gear for travel that would be helpful.

 

Thanks

I carry mine in a pelican. I also have another camera bag occasionally. Most airline allow an additional hand carry if you're carrying photo equipment...

Pelican

HI ALL,

If you fly out of the UK, you can only take on ONE PEICE of

hand luggage & at the moment this is very strict every thing

else goes in the hold.

Andy

HI ALL,

If you fly out of the UK, you can only take on ONE PEICE of

hand luggage & at the moment this is very strict every thing

else goes in the hold.

Andy

Andy

Can I quote myself?!

As an aside, on my last trip to the Red Sea BA managed to deliver my checked luggage 3 days after my arrival (great when you are on a liveaboard trip ) - and the bag was badly damaged too.......

In the bag was my housing; this suffered some minimal damage & when I approached BA about compensation for the repair I was informed that 'cameras, or any associated equipment, are regarded as fragile & therefore not eligable for compensation if placed in hold luggage'. So I wrote back to them pointing out that I couldn't carry it on as hand luggage (too large) so what did they suggest? Their reply was interesting: 'you could take it on board, as BA will allow - in addition to one bag - a handbag, a laptop computer, any duty-free goods purchased after check in and camera equipment'. I asked for this in writing - and have subsequently received it - so my Pelikan will be travelling onto the flight in my hand next time I fly BA!

I'm off to Dahab this weekend (Excel out of Bristol) & currently trying to get a definitive answer from them on this subject............

Andy

Can I quote myself?!

I'm off to Dahab this weekend (Excel out of Bristol) & currently trying to get a definitive answer from them on this subject............

hey ralphy,

as far as i can tell (from going through heathrow every friday since the beginning of the year now) the issue is not ba, it's uk security measures, makes no difference that ba or any other airline tells you can bring three pieces of hand luggage or whatever.

if you can fit all your carry on in one wheelie that fits in the hand luggage frame/measure thing,

then you are fine, it not all the people i have seen try to take even just a computer bag get turned back and have to check their luggage.

hope you can work around the system though

enjoy the diving

/paul

On my last two trips I've used the LowePro CompuRover backpack with good results. It has separate compartments for laptop (Large enough to hold a large laptop or a 15" screen laptop plus external harddrive in my case), camera plus lenses, and one more which fits an ikelite Canon 20D housing plus one port and a bunch of odds and ends. Never had any questions about its size and LowePro claims it is a "carry-on approved size". Some pictures may give a better idea.

The back compartment is for the laptop. My last flight was with Continental which allows one to bring a laptop plus a separate carry-on so I used the compartment for the heavy Humann & Deloach books and brought the laptop in its own carrying case. The bottom front compartment is well-padded and holds camera and lenses, with the rest going in the top front compartment (pictures in next messages as they are too big to fit in one message and I'm too stupid to know how to make them smaller in Windows).

Bart

The top compartment had enough space to let me add an outer layer of foam for extra protection. The content is the housing a 6.5" port, two dive computers, DS125 strobe charger and a bunch of spare parts o-rings etc. There are a few other pockets along the side and front of the backpack that I used to stuff with batteries, depth/temp data logger and other small stuff (not shown).

The bottom compartment has padded space for the camera and 6 lenses, or more if you can double up some short lenses. I also squeezed in some stepup rings, extension rings, and diopter.

All the booty after unpacking. I forgot to weight it but it was somewhere in the 20-30 pound range. Continental allows you to carry up to an amazing 40 pound in your carry-on so you could stuff your weight belt in it if you wanted

Strobes, extra ports and handle-bars for housing went into the checked luggage. I believe the backpack was something like US$150 and I consider it money well spend and I expect it will last for years if not decades at the frequency I get to go on dive trips

Bart

Hi.

I have a Rover AW too (not the laptop version), and just rediscovered it yesterday as the answer to my carryon weight limit problems. This Rover isn't quite as big as Bart's, but it's perfect for what I'm doing. And it's LIGHT!

The Rover AW is a Clam Shell Design, somewhat different than the newer style that Bart has. The divider between the top and bottom sections can be removed.

The bottom compartment, like Bart said, is a large padded squarish area. I'm using that for my 5d housing (with camera body inside), and flat port (with a lense inside). I'll probably wrap them in thin bubble wrap, but in the picture they're not. The padding is about half an inch thick - not the uber padding you get on the bigger backpacks. I can lay another lense on top of the port, but took it out for the photo.

The top compartment holds the dome port, my P&S in it's housing, GPS, and if I dare, 2 DS-125s. (Bad pic of things in top compartment.) It tapers toward the top (looks like maybe the newer Rover that Bart has doesn't taper as much and thus has more room above?) This reduces the area in the upper compartment, but also reduces the profile of the bag, hopefully making it more inconspicuous if it is overweight. :-)

With two DS-125s, the whole thing weighs 24 lbs. Without them it's about 17lbs.

The important take-away, however, is that the Rover AW, empty, weighs like maybe 1 or 2 lbs, whereas the Computrekker Plus weighs 5.5lbs. If you're weight limited, the Rover is a roomy pack that is surprisingly light.

I don't know if they are selling this model of Rover anymore, but they are readily available on ebay and the photo forums.

I'm carrying my laptop separately.

All pics are here: Rover Pics

Hope that helps somebody.

Susan

Bart, Susan Thank you to both of you for taking the time to take photo's and post your replies. I do appreciate it! You both have given me some idea's to think about regarding packing.

Thanks,

Jonathan

Hi Susan, thanks for the pics, it looks indeed very much the same design as mine but without the laptop compartment. I never thought about using the squarish bottom compartment for the squarish housing but may try on a shorter trip with fewer lenses.

Bart

Yes, Bart, except I think the top portion on mine is smaller. I don't think the housing would fit in there.

I'm really hoping this will work. I"m also hoping I don't accidently leave my laptop on a bench somewhere in the Changi Intl Airport!!!!!! Gotta figure a way to clip it to myself securely! I need my camera tether!

Hi Susan,

I noticed that you transport your camera body mounted in the housing. I have done that myself and it worked well. I just wanted to remind you and others that the manual of the housing tells you not to do that. If the housing experiences a sudden accelleration, because you drop the backpack or something like that, then it places a lot of force on the tray holding the camera, with potential for damage. However, as long as you trust yourself to be careful with the backpack I see no problem and it does safe valuable space.

Bart

Very good point Bart. The tray mount isn't reinforced very strongly. Hopefully I won't drop it! :-) I may have other problems if I drop it anyway, however!

Hi Susan,

 

I noticed that you transport your camera body mounted in the housing. I have done that myself and it worked well. I just wanted to remind you and others that the manual of the housing tells you not to do that. If the housing experiences a sudden accelleration, because you drop the backpack or something like that, then it places a lot of force on the tray holding the camera, with potential for damage. However, as long as you trust yourself to be careful with the backpack I see no problem and it does safe valuable space.

 

Bart

I've just started to pack up for a trip starting tomorrow for Palau. In my case I'm using a Pelican 1510 (w/ dividers) AND a Lowepro CompuRover AW. The Pelican, while legal carryon size is getting checked in... I guess I have a little more faith in airlines and will have my S&S 350D housing, macro ports, focus rings, backup 350D body, 2x Inon Z-240 strobes, chargers, etc in the Pelican... The CompuRover bottom camera compartment carries a Canon 400D(XTi) w/ Sigma 18-50mm EX mounted, Tokina 10-17mm FE, Canon 10-22mm, Canon 100mm macro, Canon 60mm macro, 70-200mm f2.8 IS, & 1.4X TC. Dome port goes in the upper compartment along with a fisheye focus light, speedlite, and other camera/ computer accesories. Small laptop in the laptop in the compartment. CompuRover fully loaded probably weights in over 12kg! Arms go into my dive bag.

For my next trip, I think I'm gonna replace my Pelican with a standard Samsonite and re-use the pelican dividers and other cushions. Instead of shelling out for a larger check-in sized Pelican. The Pelican's themselves just weight too much and eat into my precious luggage allowance.

Here is how I packed mine to Hawaii.

It is a Lowepro Computrekker 17 bag. The hardest part is the weight, it takes a lot NOT to look like I have 50lbs worth of weight on my back!

The bodies and lenses were in a separate Kata 103 Bag.

One question regarding the Computrekker:

Is the Computrekker 17 is a different model then the Computrekker?

I have the Computrekker and it seems a little smaller then in the last post’s images, in the Lowerpro's site I see only one model (without mentioned 17)

HI Arnon,

I have the same lowepro bag as you & yes it is slightly smaller than the one shown

I get my housing,w/p 6" dome, 35mm extender, flat port,2 strobes Inon's,1lens 105mm micro

in the bag & my 14" laptop, with all this it weight is 8/9 kilos. I box up my chargers, housing

handles, strobe arms,cables etc in my case to go in the hold. Now the problem I will have is

my camera, 2/3 lens & view finder (S45) which I normally carry in a small Tamrac bag at the

moment in the uk it is only ONE peice of hand luggage. My small camera bag weight is 3/4 kilos

Andy

Andy

Can I quote myself?!

I'm off to Dahab this weekend (Excel out of Bristol) & currently trying to get a definitive answer from them on this subject............

Your probably away at the moment, but would like to hear how you got on regarding the bags. I've used ExCel out of Bristol for a number of flights and have always managed it but packing most of the camera gear and getting the extra diver allowance.

Charles