Traveling with redundant photo gear: what do others do?

My question to you guys is: how much "backup" or redundant photo gear do you carry with you when on an extended trip that's important to you to shoot pictures? What are the most important pieces of back-up gear to have, in your opinion? What's most vulnerable to failure?

I've happened to be on the same trip with a few professionals (e.g., Cathy Church, Tim Rock, others) who had at least two complete identical set-ups with them. Housing, camera, strobes, cords, not sure about redundant lenses or ports. This struck me as extreme, until last week...

The context for my question is that: last week in Bimini Bahamas, I had my first true housing malfunction (not that it really matters - an old-school Canon 5D in the Sea & Sea housing). Water leaked into the finder of the housing. Let me be clear - not actually through the o-ring that seals the finder into the back of the housing, but actually through the finder itself. When I examined it closely, there was a "ding" on one side of the finder which I believe had impaired the seal of the glass on the outside of the finder, and made it no longer pressure proof and allowed water to slip in. I was p***ed because I'd spent a bunch of money to go to Bimini, with the goal of shooting wild dolphins, and didn't have a workable photo setup, and no real way to remedy the situation. I actually figured out something of DIY workaround but it was far from ideal.

So the question occurred to me - given enough money to buy the equipment and to ship it with you, a good remedy is to carry a back-up. Spare parts like o-rings, plus a redundant housing, camera, sync cords, maybe even an extra strobe all seem obvious to ensure that you can shoot. But how far do you go with this - e.g., lenses themselves, lens ports? It is conceivable you could lose a port if you or the deck hand drops the thing on the port and cracks it. If you only have 1 dome port and you need to shoot wide angle, then your photography is done even if you have a spare housing. Similarly, if you flood one housing and damage your wide angle lens, you're done shooting even if you have a spare housing and camera!

Or alternatively, are failures of some things conceivable but so unlikely that the expense to mitigate it just isn't worth it?

One could go crazy (and maybe bankrupt) thinking about scenarios and carrying the backups necessary to mitigate them - so would love to get a sense of what you all think about this and what if anything you actually do about it in practice.

I spare everything electronic (or related) - camera body, strobes, sync cords, chargers, batteries, bulkhead & adapter, etc. I also carry a complete rebuild kit for the housing (all o-rings & c-clips) & set of latches. Most housings are mechanical. If they leak, find location & replace o-ring (unless it was operator error that caused the problem). If a lens or port is damaged, then I'm just more limited in what subjects I can shoot. The only items here that cost much are camera & strobe. Minimal space required.

Julie and I take 3 cameras, 6 strobes, and all the electronics that are inside a subal house. Thats besides all the spare little bits and pieces like screws, cables, orings, batteries, etc.

If we have some catastrophic failure we can probably continue on in some way. We had a body once that had a busted shutter, so we were glad we had a spare camera.

Personally, I can't afford a duplicate setup. $6000 is a lot of money for an amateur photographer; another $4k for a backup housing and camera body is out of the question. I'm *really* careful with my equipment and I test it thoroughly with a swimming pool session before I go on a trip. Since I have two strobes, a backup sync cord, spare o-rings, multiple lenses and ports, there's really only two things which will totally put me out of business -- a) camera body malfunction or b) housing flood. Hasn't happened yet (crosses fingers). If the worst ever happens, I'll just have to enjoy the dives

2 bodies

wide zoom, normal prime, intermediate zoom, and macro lenses

2 flash

macro and dome port

2 camera and 2AA chargers and batteries and 6' extension cord (incredibly useful)

complete set of spare o-rings

spare synch cord

laptop, colorspace UDMA, usb drive with spare cords, plugs, etc.

the main problem i see with one housing is the possibility of penetration seal failure so i make sure it's serviced regularly

out of this combination i figure that the worst case is that i'm left with one body, one port (not necessarily the one i want), and one flash -- if WA is essential i can see the comfort in taking a spare dome port as this seems to me one of the more fragile pieces of kit - and about the most nuisance to pack

i've had good luck carrying the gear on with me

i used to carry a small point and shoot with plastic housing but haven't recently. point and shoots are better now and this is not unreasonable depending on level of paranoia

I just got my DSLR set up, but I'll be taking my DX-1g with me on trips as well. Like some others, I can't afford another 5 grand for a back up housing and DSLR. My DX does pretty good

Thanks for the replies. I learned something from each of them.

To synthesize what themes there are in what you said:

- Carry redundant electronics (camera body, strobes, batteries, cords) because if these fail there's no hope of fixing in the field and you're probably done shooting

- Carry tools and parts to service a leaking housing

- Be really careful to avoid physical damage to ports, housing, lenses

What I am considering doing is (beyond fixing my currently leaking housing) one of the following three things. Either:

1. Buying a used copy of my current camera body (original Canon 5D) and a back-up strobe.

2. Doing 1, plus adding a used copy of my current housing and a backup dome port

3. Buying a new housing and camera body (something like a 50D or 5D-Mark II), and carrying two camera and housing set ups. Plus an extra strobe and an extra dome.

The cost for each option is approximately:

1. $2000

2. $4000

3. $4500-$6500 (depending on new model)

Any thoughts or additional comments? Thanks again for the help so far.

Spare camera body. I use it for topside on the trip so I don't have to remove the u/w camera from the housing when topside. If needed, it is available for underwater.

I have a macro lens/port and a wide lens/port. So I am redundant in the sense that if I have a port problem or a flood that damages my lens, I can always switch from macro to wide or vice versa. But I would be restricted for the rest of the trip. So be it.

Spare Inon Z240 strobe (i.e. I carry 3, use 2). I used to carry only 2. I have had a strobe quit on me at the start of a trip. I did all my dives with one strobe and was still happy with the results.

Spare optical sync cable.

Spare o-rings. I don't "carry a complete rebuild kit for the housing (all o-rings & c-clips) & set of latches" like jcclink does, but it sounds like a good suggestion!

Spare modeling light. This also allows me to take 2 modeling lights on a long night dive.

Total of 32 AA batteries. Used in my strobes. Modeling lights. Flashlights. iPod player. Anything and everything. With 2 chargers. Nice thing about AA's is there are always other divers with spare batteries and chargers.

Spare charger for my camera batteries.

Spare charger for my laptop. I have been doing this for years. Paid off in Africa last summer. My charger died in Amsterdam on the way to Tanzania. I was glad to have a spare!

Redundant systems to transfer photos from my memory cards. Both a laptop and a Hyperdrive Colorspace. If either dies, I am still OK. Normally I end up transferring the photos from the card to the Hyperdrive, then from the Hyperdrive to the laptop, then from the laptop to a backup drive. So I end up with 3 copies. The backup drive for the laptop is a bootable copy of my laptop internal hard drive. If my internal hard drive dies, I can still operate the laptop off the backup drive.

Spare first stage and spare second stage if I have the space and weight allowance.

Spare mask. Spare contact lenses.

(edit) A couple more that I forgot.

Spare dive computer. My main wrist computer is wireless air integrated. I still have a console with pressure gauge as a backup. In the console I have a second dive computer from the same manufacturer with the same algorithm. So I have redundant computer and air pressure. On my recent dive trip a buddy lost his air integrated wrist computer to the depths. He did not have a pressure gauge. We were on a liveaboard. I was able to give him my console with computer and gauge to get him through the trip.

Spare batteries for all things electronic. Whenever I get a new battery powered device I immediately get a spare battery. For my dive computers. Wireless pressure transmitter. Subal leak detector. Etc. On several trips I have bailed out other folk who needed a battery. Great way to get a free beer or two.

Maybe this is common knowledge; if so I apologize. ;-)

There is a way to "hotwire" an ike housing if you flood it, so that you can still use the housing to fire your strobes.

On a semi-recent trip, a trip member flooded his Ike housing (I think he used a Nikon D200 but not sure). That camera was toast, but he had a backup camera. Problem is, the housing electronics were fried, so he didn't have a way to trigger his strobes. (With some cameras, a fiber-optic sync cord might solve this, but my camera and i assume his don't have a pop up flash to trigger from).

Well this one Wetpixeler (who shall remain nameless unless he wants to chime in) pulled a small soldering iron out of his bag and proceeded to hotwire the guy's housing, bypassing all the circuitry, but making it so the "fire now!" signal could get to the strobes. The photographer had to shoot his strobes in manual after that, but he was pretty much back in business. Everybody was VERY impressed.

I've now acquired the soldering iron, and will be finding out how to do it before my next big trip.

if you can deal with carrying all the stuff, alternative 3 may make the most sense, except for cost. i don't recommend the 50D as a crop frame camera mostly requires a different set of lenses - however, you may be able to get a deal on a used 40/50D housing (i don't think the 50D is noticeably better than the 40D - particularly UW). A new 5D2 and housing is going to be expensive, but the 5D2 gives spectacular results topside for big prints -- and has video capability which leads to expensive video lights. If you do available light, there's a big difference between the 5D and 5D2 compared to any of the crop frame cameras.

Used 5Ds should be pretty reasonable (i have one) and used housings should be available at reasonable cost soon if not now. However i'd say a spare body and dome port would be okay without the travel weight and bulk of the 2nd housing. There's also something to be said for cameras that have the same control interface.

The advantage of the second housing is having both macro and WA setups ready to go (and ideally having assistant/buddy taking the second rig down for you). I haven't found the changeover time from macro to WA to be a problem (experience and specific setup notes including bouyancy help) and my wife is not going to carry a second rig for me.

My question to you guys is: how much "backup" or redundant photo gear do you carry with you when on an extended trip that's important to you to shoot pictures? What are the most important pieces of back-up gear to have, in your opinion? What's most vulnerable to failure?

 

Or alternatively, are failures of some things conceivable but so unlikely that the expense to mitigate it just isn't worth it?

 

One could go crazy (and maybe bankrupt) thinking about scenarios and carrying the backups necessary to mitigate them - so would love to get a sense of what you all think about this and what if anything you actually do about it in practice.

I recently took a trip to Tonga to photograph humpback whales. I bought a used Subal Housing for a D300. I twisted my head off at home and on here considering taking my D700 and another set of lenses or a second, back-up D300. As it turned out I borrowed a D300 from a friend and took my newly rebuilt (and tested) 18-200 for surface shots. The 18-200 died in transit (LA layover) and the borrowed back up camera failed once I arrived! It would fire about 5 % of the time and after a week of frustration ... I did get a few breaching shots on the last day out.

The used housing worked great but I did have some learning lessons in the process!

I get so much better images with the full frame D700, so will get a mid range zoom (such as the 24-120 and my 70-300) before my next trip and not carry another D300.

At least that is where my brain is going now.

But that can certainly change on any particular day!

Good luck

I carry spares of all the cheap stuff (o-rings, etc), but my problem is that I usually travel for other purposes so I don't want to be too heavy. Result: 1 housing and 1 camera (not that I could afford a second D2x with housing anyways). But I've noticed that what fails the most for me are the strobes and synch cords, so I carry 4 cords and 3 strobes most of the time.

I've happened to be on the same trip with a few professionals (e.g., Cathy Church, Tim Rock, others) who had at least two complete identical set-ups with them. Housing, camera, strobes, cords, not sure about redundant lenses or ports.

I would do that too if photography was where my salary came from