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DSLR
Camera Equipment and Laptops
Tips To Transport and Protect by Steve Warren
More and more divers are taking up underwater photography as camera equipment has become more user friendly and start up costs have lowered. They are recording their often incredible underwater experiences and encounters both at home and abroad instead of trusting to overloaded memories, and they are showing friends and family exactly why they are drawn to diving.
Transporting and protecting underwater cameras by air properly is very important. Unlike diving equipment it still isn't easy to rent quality underwater cameras and accessories. If you are used to how your own camera system works, learning to use another quickly during your holiday can be frustrating and the final results unrewarding.
Ideally you want to keep your underwater camera system with you while travelling. This ensures it makes it to your final destination and greatly reduces the risk of it being damaged during baggage handling.
Small film and digital cameras and accessories are normally small enough to go in your hand luggage. They're also fairly easy to distribute among pockets in your clothing. You can also wear a small camera around your neck or put it in a dedicated pack that clips to your waist belt.
If you are carrying larger systems or back up equipment it becomes more trying. Camera jackets are an invaluable investment if you fall into this category. Developed for the professional photographer who needs to carry a lot of kit, have easy access to it at all times and remain mobile, photo jackets work well for divers too. Photo jackets are festooned with pockets ( typically a dozen or more). These include small pockets suitable for lenses and chargers, mid sized pockets that can accept a camera or small strobe and deep pouches designed to take long telephoto lenses which can be pressed into service for carrying large strobes or video lights. Photo jackets conceal equipment instead of attracting attention to it and as most airlines do not weigh what the passenger is wearing neatly avoid the rules on weight applied to carry on luggage.
Bum bags are also a useful addition to your luggage. These are often large enough to accommodate a 35 mm or digital housing.
If you are declaring camera equipment as part of your carry on luggage it's likely you'll be held to a 5 or 6 kg weight limit. This seems to be discretionary and sometimes this rule is enforced and sometimes there's leeway. It's best to plan for the former. Most aluminium film and digital SLR housings are about half this limit. So there's often room for a port as well. With film cameras unpack your film from their boxes and consider placing the containers inside your housing with a little bubblewrap to protect viewfinder and LCD display panels from scratches. Film cassettes are bulky enmasse, but light. If the film containers are transparent you'll be able to easily see the film speed at a glance when you need to.
Polycarbonate SLR housings and many video housings will exceed the usual carry on limits. There may be no choice but to ship these via the aircraft hold. This presents several real world problems you need to be aware of. These include the very real expectation of facing excess baggage charges, the possibility your equipment won't end up where you do and the risk of damage rendering your gear unusable on your trip.
Most airlines allow travellers one piece of hold luggage weighing 20 or 23 kg as standard. Once you go over this you begin to risk excess charges. Combining your dive gear and a camera set is likely to exceed this by some margin. All-environment cases themselves weigh several kilos empty. Excess charges usually end up as being 1% of the First Class fare per kilo. One way. Because fares vary depending on where they were purchased excess baggage premiums may be even higher on the return leg.
There's also a risk of your luggage being misdirected. If this happens it may take days for it to be found and forwarded to you. Even if it reaches the right airport, it isn't likely it will be possible to ever get it to you if you have joined a liveaboard and are on the high seas.
Another danger is that even when seemingly well protected inside an all-environment case, camera gear can still get damaged. You probably took great care of your camera rig ensuring you didn't drop it, carefully placing it in your boot or on your back seat to minimise shocks and making sure it didn't fall off your airport trolley. Then you gave it to check in and watched it disappear behind the rubber curtains. From that point on it got thrown around with all the other hundreds of cases joining your plane. Sometimes they even plummet from the conveyer belt taking them up to or down from the aircrafts hold and hit the tarmac.
There's not much you can do to avoid check-in fees or lost luggage. But you can take some measures to protect your cameras as they pass through luggage handling.
The best protection is provided by using all-environment cases. These cases are constructed from very tough plastics with fittings such as hinges made from non corrosive metals. They are O-ring sealed to prevent the case leaking even if dropped overboard while transferring to and from boats.
Usually these types of cases are provided with a foam lining. This is to both hold the equipment in place securely and to help minimise shocks and vibrations reaching the equipment inside if it gets handled roughly. Pluck foam is the usual choice. Once you've sketched out the equipment layout that suits you, it's a quick and easy procedure to pull out the pre diced cubes of foam with your fingers.
Another option is to fit dividers. This doesn't break down over time as foam can do. Usually the dividers can be moved around allowing you to change the configuration of your case if you change systems. Foam normally has to be replaced.
A few all-environment cases accept purpose designed soft bags. These are normal camera bags that can be slung over your shoulder or worn as rucksacks and have an adjustable divider layout built in. These can be ideal if you need hard case protection some of the time, perhaps while driving off road, but then want to dispense with the weight of a hard case when you reach your location.
With the increase in divers using digital stills and video cameras, laptops have become commonplace at dive destinations. All environment cases are popular choices for protecting these to. Some airlines allow a laptop to go with you in the cabin in addition to your normal allowance.
When deciding what equipment will be stored in an all environment case remember that anything that needs to be kept dry and salt free such as chargers, batteries and recording media needs to be protected. This is because once something wet, like a housing, goes into the case, the damp can effect other equipment. Even after the water evaporates it's likely to leave salt behind. It's good practice to seal and then soak in fresh water any equipment you've had in the case when you return home and then store it separately. This helps minimise any problems with corrosion.