I’m lucky that my work in digital effects has taken me to several other countries to work. This means quite a bit of air travel. Actually this year has involved a heck of a lot of travel. Two round trips from Vancouver to UK, And two trips to Australia (ok one of those trips was owing to a bereavement) but still quite a lot of air travel.
My top tip for longhaul travel is to carry good earplugs but that’s another story. Anyway as my work trips are often for months or even years at a time I’m really keen to have all my equipment with me. But getting kit around the world without paying excess baggage seems to have become my latest obsession in photography. This task is not made easier as my list of camera equipment has grown significantly over the past few years.
On every occasion I'm due to fly longhaul I start out with the idea that I shall take a 'core' amount of camera kit. But the pile of essential items grows until I realise I’m going to take everything with me. Everything comprises quite a lot of stuff. The obvious option is to buy a large flight case. That also means paying extra baggage, and on top of that I'd definitely choose to insure it too. Depending on your carrier checked in luggage can get quite pricey. But do you really need to go to all that expense?
Flying in economy I’ve found that allowances vary quite a bit. I (like many other photographers) find the idea of saving money by taking my kit as cabin luggage quite seductive. Cheaper, safer, more sensible to me. And if I save a few pennies I’d be halfway to buying something else. Maybe in the duty free section. Best not dwell on that train of thought.
So I’ll assume like me you’re particularly protective of some kit more than others. In my kit I have a couple of digital bodies, several lens ….. (ok lots of lens), mostly primes but a 70-200mm zoom too. A doubler, and more recently a film camera too. (I’ll post something about that another day). I also have a couple of tripods. Two specialist tripods heads. (Both surprisingly heavy). A case of filters and sundry other bits and pieces.
I should be clear I don’t carry all this stuff at the same time. My kit is specialised towards creating panoramic images. I have a lightweight point and click kit I scout locations with. The general aim being to return with a full kit. I'm also generally willing to point my lens to whatever is on hand and so dabbled in other photographic genres. So I have kit for those specialities too. All in all the whole kit is bulky and heavy too, it includes camera 'widgets' and 'thingumys' that have been used once and live in dark boxes. Items that are never likely to earn their keep but I seem to be hoarding 'just in case'. But how to get it all onto the plane?
There is no way to disguise the size of my camera bag it's, large as it often carries hiking kit too. My recent choice was to empty my usual camera bag, and use another bag as my carry on. My camera backpack maybe within the cabin limits of some airlines but owing to it’s bulk gets inspected quite regularly. Probably because airlines often identify ‘overweight’ cabin luggage by apparent volume rather than checking weight. To go under their radar I chose to put my camera backpack into one of my holdalls. The smaller bag is one I use at home to store extra kit in. It’s quite small but can fit several lens and bodies with no problem. And for the record the bag I used as cabin friendly is a Vanguard Xcenior 30.
My kit is then divided into - must go into cabin with me. And then the not so fragile which I feel I can take a knock or two. In essence, two bodies, and six lens and a laptop and 2 portable hard disk drives were assigned to be in my hand luggage. Btw I deemed the autofocus lens to be the least robust. Spare batteries, CF cards etc were easy to find space for. I also carried the two manual focus lens in the zip pockets of my coat. That was until l was in the cabin. Then I stowed them in the bag too.
My tripods, a box of filters, tripod heads battery chargers and all manner of little bits were distributed in the luggage. I have a huge holdall that easily holds my camera backpack with room lots of other things too. Which left me to carry a smaller cabin sized bag. And importantly a personal item, my laptop.
The weight I carried was significantly more than cabin allowance almost every time I flew. If questioned I’d have assembled the camera with the 70-200 and carried that aboard round my neck. Btw my noise reducing headphones were taken out of their case (the case went in the luggage) and were worn around my neck. One way or another I got more personal luggage into the cabin on my economy ticket than I would have thought possible. If I choose to pull this trick again I think a multi pocket coat such as worn by Fagin (in Oliver Twist) would be a very useful accessory.
Happily my kit all arrived with me without mishap and without additional cost. And it's fun to think I saved a few pennies but I was probably lucky rather than clever. So one day soon I shall be investing in an airline safe case and in future will use a luggage forwarding service to get my gear where it needs to be.