Think Tank 4-Sight Holiday Special

Still looking for ideas? Here a great one in time for the holidays. Click on photo for details.

Packing da small bag

Photographers are turning to smaller and smaller photopacks to carry less and less gear. We know this from the tons of sales of our MP-7 and the phones calls from folks asking for help. Well, I thought I’d put together a little packing video on just that topic for ya.

I want to make sure one thing is clearer. I talk about switching the gear from a “people” shooting packing to “landscape” in the video. When I do that, the 14-24, 28f1.4 & 24-70AFS come out of the MP-7 and the 24, 45 & 85PC-E go in their place. Hope this helps you take all the gear you need for your next shoot!

Packing da Bag

As my bud Joe would say, “It’s my lot in life” to explain this stuff. The #8 email I receive is, “How do you pack your camera bag?” Well, here you go, this is how I do it. While I’m going to demonstrate how to pack the photopack I use, the MP-1 (because it fits in every overhead in the world), that really doesn’t matter to you. The logic on how you pack is what you need to pick up on to figure out how to pack your own bag.

Travelin' Light

It’s packin time, on our way to our HI DLWS event. As I got the bags out from under the bed (no need to put them away away, just back from FL a week ago), it occurred to me I should be updating my webpage on traveling. Then it occurred to me I should just blog it because, well, it’s a whole lot faster to do. You can see the way I went.

What you see above is anything but traveling light. That photo is 600lbs of gear Sharon, Jake & I took in with us to McNeil River last summer. When I travel on a “normal” trip, I have four bags with me, carry-on is a photopack (MP-1, MP-3 or MP-7) and Swiss Army Wheeled Briefcase. Checked are the Eagle Creek Load Warrior and Tamrac 694. No, four bags isn’t traveling light but it is considering I’m shipping quite often another 100+ pounds of gear in a Pelican 1660. Man, that’s a lot of stuff!

You can follow the links to see the camera gear I’m carrying on. The briefcase carries the Dell m4400 and m6400 notebooks. My main external 500GB Buffalo drives are also in the briefcase with the backups in the photopack. The Tamrac has “camera gear” such as MooseCam, tripod heads, readers, cables, chargers and the like. The Load Warrior has the tripod (s), clothes, shoes and the like. Both check-in just skin under the 50lbs limit and yes, I pay for the extra bag (there is no option and it is work, gotta have it with me).

Going through security I rarely find any big deal. I’m prepared before I reach it to go through it. My “stuff” goes through the same order everytime. Shoes, notebooks, briefcase and photopack. My watch, iPhone go in the briefcase so I have one less thing to deal with on the otherside. Other than the occassional theft of really little items from my check-in (like multi-tools, screw driver kit), I don’t have problems. Oh yeah, the last thing I pack and take with me through security is a smile. In fact, I make it a challange to make those friendly TSA folks smile just a little more as I pass by. There’s a couple of links here, hope the trivia helps you on your next trip!

Travelin’ Light

It’s packin time, on our way to our HI DLWS event. As I got the bags out from under the bed (no need to put them away away, just back from FL a week ago), it occurred to me I should be updating my webpage on traveling. Then it occurred to me I should just blog it because, well, it’s a whole lot faster to do. You can see the way I went.

What you see above is anything but traveling light. That photo is 600lbs of gear Sharon, Jake & I took in with us to McNeil River last summer. When I travel on a “normal” trip, I have four bags with me, carry-on is a photopack (MP-1, MP-3 or MP-7) and Swiss Army Wheeled Briefcase. Checked are the Eagle Creek Load Warrior and Tamrac 694. No, four bags isn’t traveling light but it is considering I’m shipping quite often another 100+ pounds of gear in a Pelican 1660. Man, that’s a lot of stuff!

You can follow the links to see the camera gear I’m carrying on. The briefcase carries the Dell m4400 and m6400 notebooks. My main external 500GB Buffalo drives are also in the briefcase with the backups in the photopack. The Tamrac has “camera gear” such as MooseCam, tripod heads, readers, cables, chargers and the like. The Load Warrior has the tripod (s), clothes, shoes and the like. Both check-in just skin under the 50lbs limit and yes, I pay for the extra bag (there is no option and it is work, gotta have it with me).

Going through security I rarely find any big deal. I’m prepared before I reach it to go through it. My “stuff” goes through the same order everytime. Shoes, notebooks, briefcase and photopack. My watch, iPhone go in the briefcase so I have one less thing to deal with on the otherside. Other than the occassional theft of really little items from my check-in (like multi-tools, screw driver kit), I don’t have problems. Oh yeah, the last thing I pack and take with me through security is a smile. In fact, I make it a challange to make those friendly TSA folks smile just a little more as I pass by. There’s a couple of links here, hope the trivia helps you on your next trip!

How Moose Travels with Gear

Traveling with da Gear

06.09 - While flying is anything but romantic, it’s still amazing how we can jet around the world with relative ease. Knock on wood, but I still have yet to have any horrible hassle or ghastly tale of travel. I did have a TSA checker drop my 200f2VR denting the shade and one TSA gal who was looking through the 200f2 with the caps off and said, “Too bad they don’t make these things so we can look through them.” But nothing truly major. I do seem to always find on one leg of my travels a TSA  “photo enthusiast” who wants to look at my gear and talk photography. I just smile, answer the questions and go on my way. We always arrive at the airport two hours early, usually flying right through spending a little extra time at the gate. It’s just the way travel is these days. With a good book, iPod 80GB video, Bose headphones, we arrive at the other end no worse for the wear.

I always have my carry-on two items – one carry-on & one personal item. I have either the MP-1 or MP-3 Photopack with the gear listed on Moose’s Camera Bag. I have my Dell notebooks (normally travel with 2 now, m4400 & m6400 both with 500GB drives), a couple of 500GBBuffalo External drives and other misc stuff in my other carry-on, in a Swiss Army WT Wheeled Briefcase EXP. This is a killer bag which has taken some real abuse (at the hands of others) and still works great!

My checked luggage is still the Eagle Creek Monster Trunk which they have discontinued now (ORV comes close). In the Monster Trunk goes the tripod and the rest of my personal gear. The other check-in is the Tamarac 695 Strong Box. This is the primary bag for my checked camera gear. The MP-5 would be packed in this case along with the tripod head. Both bags have TSA locks on them, Victorinox Swiss Army Accessories TSA Combo Locks. Whenever possible, I stay with my checked luggage until it has been scanned and been put on the belt to the plane.

Those items not packed in the Photopack are now FedEx to the location in a Pelican Case 1660. Typically this is the 200-400VR, 200VR, batteries and battery units, GPS units and the like. I no longer trust any gear to check-in when flying.

Has my luggage ever been lost? Not permanently, but I have been without it for 12-16 hours after I’ve landed. Has items gone missing from my checked luggage? Yeah, to much, mainly rechargeable batteries, I’ve gone through lots of them. A Gerber tool or two has disappeared as well. Has any, any of my gear ever been damaged or destroyed in either my carry-on or checked in? Never, knock on wood, never in all my years flying. Everything is carefully wrapped and packed so it has as much protection that can be afforded in these days of travels.

Getting through the airport isn’t fun, isn’t a hassle, it’s just life that we are very fortunate that even with all the inconveniences, we are able to take advantage of still to pursue our passions. I walk into the terminal expecting the worse with a smile on my face and patience in my heart and just persevere through the idiots to reach my destination so I can shoot. Since that’s really all I’m after, the rest seems to be trivial.