Air travel with photo and video gear is the stuff of nightmares for a lot of creatives, as the game of trying to avoid checking anything fragile but still take everything you need is a tough one. This great video shows how one filmmaker manages to carry 66 lbs. of gear all in carry-on baggage.
Coming to you from Griffin Hammond, this video shows how he smartly packs an absurd amount of gear into just his carry-on baggage. Using just carry-ons is about more than saving money on checked bag fees: it's very important to avoid putting anything remotely fragile in checked baggage. Airlines are notoriously rough with their handling and very difficult to deal with if something goes wrong. Furthermore, if they lose your bag, you could show up at a job without your gear. Luckily, as Hammond shows, with some careful thought, you can fit a remarkable amount of gear in a carry-on. For example, he carries two Panasonic GH5 cameras, a GH4, two 42.5mm f/1.2 lenses, a 25mm f/1.4, an 8-18mm f/2.8-f/4, a gimbal, tripod, Mavic Air, MacBook Pro, and way more all in his luggage. Check out the video above for the full rundown on his organization.
I guess he only flies American airlines. Many foreign carriers have a weight limit for carry on. Let us see how much he can carry with a 26 lb. limitation.
Yup or some airlines randomly decide to weigh carry-on and personal items before flights.
I guess you would make sure of getting overhead space by buying priority boarding. The times I got stuck checking my roll aboard was during the later part of boarding a full flight. I tried the battery gambit, and was told to take them out before they gate checked my bag.
You describe my personal nightmare perfectly. Flights are getting so full on a regular basis, you do need priority boarding to give yourself a good shot at the overhead bin.
Ideally, I like traveling with all of my fragile stuff in my personal item. If I'm carrying too much gear that it won't fit in my personal item bag and have to use the overhead bin, things gets interesting.
If I can't get priority boarding, I'm more inclined to get the middle seat in order to have the widest under seat storage area.
As an emergency measure, I'm carrying empty collapsible bags in my carry-on. If there's no overhead bin space, I'll quickly reshuffle things to allow putting the fragile stuff under the seat in front of me from that carry-on bag. For this reason, I started packing all of the lenses in their pouches to offer some minimal anti-scratch protection.
Along the same lines, I've been using Tenba's BYOB padded inserts that have can be zipped closed and used a stand-alone bag. These inserts would either go into my carry-on backpack (when not using a dedicated camera backpack) or in my messenger bag serving as my personal item.
No chance at Heathrow London,but they do allow camera bag without checking the weight.
Normally, I try to make my gear look less like "Pro" but it helps with airlines. Once they recognize it as such, or I tell them, they're VERY understanding.
Has anyone outside of the USA been forced to check in your carry-on luggage, when it met the weight and size limits as carry on luggage ok? This seems to happen regularly in the US but I've never heard of it happening elsewhere.
As I replied to Elan, my experience, in the U.S., has been they're more accommodating once they know it's photo gear. Maybe the fact I'm older (not OLD), helps. People have a tendency to let me go first in lines and hold doors open for me too! :-(
If it meets the size AND weight regulations, then you cannot be FORCED to check a bag that contains more $$$ worth of gear than their liability contract allows. And their liability contract is usually limited to something pathetic like $500. So, if you're ever in this situation, you gotta get legal with the gate attendant / flight attendant, and mention to them that the value of items inside your bag far exceed the airline's liability, and if the plane is out of room then they need to find someone else's overhead bag to check. Period. They cannot put you in a situation where thousands of dollars of your gear are at risk, yet they are unwilling to accept liability for it.
Saying "do you know who I am?" might help. Depending on your DoublePlatinumSuperClub Member status you may get satisfaction. I never had to "get legal" yet, but my stuff has ended up in the closet near the door by getting the FA on my side, that doesn't work all the time though. If you keep asking for supervisors that "might' help. Offer to take the next flight.
That's interesting. I've read lots of experiences of photographers in the US who've been forced to check in their camera gear. Most responses have been to suggest potential workarounds that cost additional money (eg getting a special membership status, as suggested here). You're the first person I've seen suggest the legal angle.
That's because /lots/ of photographers in the US simply don't know their rights, and are pushovers when it comes to airline policies.
This advice comes from Benjamin Von Wong, and a few other experienced travel photographers, so it's definitely a better last-resort than either paying extra, or taking a later flight.
If anybody has ever tried this line and NOT been accommodated, I'd love to hear from them!
The problem is that in many of those cases, they'll say "We have plenty of seats on the next flight, we'll just bump you".
These days? There is no such thing as "plenty of seats on the next flight", lol, they're ALL booked to capacity.
Worst-case scenario, if they force you to check your overhead bin bag, and taking a later flight isn't an option, then you should always be able to organize your gear in order of sheer value and necessity, put all of the most valuable/necessary stuff in your under-seat bag, plus wear your biggest camera+lens around your neck, ...and thereby check an overhead bin item that contains very little valuable or necessary items.
Simon, the simple answer really is no. I fly routinely all throughout Asia and Europe and although European carriers can be a bit more strict, I can safely say that the words "gate check" just don't exist in the vocabulary outside of the US.
The most typical problem you'll face is having your carry-on baggage weighed during check-in process, where most airlines in the region have a pathetic 7-10kg (15-22 lbs) carry on allowance.
In over 200 flights around Asia, I've never once had to put my overweight camera backpack into the hold.
That's what I thought. I've flown to plenty of places (but not the US), and I've never had a problem either. I hear these horror stories from the US and I wonder what's so wrong with their system that they can't reliably get it together, when everywhere else can?
Wow, if I organized like that, I would never find half my gear. That first bag looks so unusable. I usually like think tank stuff, but man that bag would drive me nuts.
Coming from a military background, This has zero organization, and screams "I fit what i could wherever I could" to me. If this guy got a better organized bag, he could fit all of that into one carry on (weight limits aside). I have an Fstop bag that could fit all of that and more, and still meet carry-on in the US.
That's what the messenger bag is for. Once you get to your destination, you re-arrange your gear to better utilize the overall space, and leave clothes etc. in your car/hotel room.
The F-stop bags that could fit 100% of this stuff are too big for /some/ overhead bins. (Shinn, Sukha) The F-stop bags that are small enough for all overhead bins aren't big enough to carry ALL this stuff.
Great, so you are carrying on two jam packed bags plus attached accessories. The rule is one carry on and one small personal item. The last time I was on an airplane, the overhead bins were over stuffed, I sat in a seat designed for someone from lilliput and had to put my small carry-on in front of me so that I had even less room. The world is overcrowded as it is. We certainly don't need a reputable site such as F Stoppers to highlight inconsiderate and selfish behaviour such as this. The author should be embarrassed. Next time, follow the rules or leave your junk at home.
If the overhead bin suitcase is regulation size, and if the backpack fits under the seat, then who cares?
Photographers with gear are almost never the real culprits. The real culprits are the people who think they can get away with rolling a giant suitcase onto the plane, and then putting both it AND their under-seat item into the overhead bin.
Cramming a ton of heavy gear into your allotted space is not the problem. Sneaking in one tripod isn't really a problem, either.
~40 lbs of gear in a rolling case, and 25+ lbs in a shoulder bag or backpack? Sounds about right, LOL. But you're simply getting lucky when they don't ask to weigh it. You can act like it weighs nothing while you're at the front desk and at the gate, but they still might decide to weigh your carry-on.
BTW, unfortunately I just recently witnessed a gate attendant get absolutely "power-tripping rent-a-cop" strict with another passenger over a random item that they clasified as a "third", and demanded that it either be checked, or crammed into one of the bags. The gate attendant was absolutely not budging on the issue, even though it was a tiny little item that was simply an odd size. They made the two passengers stop and re-arrange all their stuff just to fit it into a bag. If I'd had a tripod in my hands or even attached to the outside of one of my carry-ons, this person would have definitely busted me.
But, quite honestly, it's not the end of the world to check a bag with your clothes and a few random items like light stands and tripods. You can still carry a backup in your carry-on, but you can also lighten your carry-on load by 30-40 lbs, too.