travel w cameras

[mitch brown]

hi
i am leaving for europe soon and would love some advise as to what formats to take and if i need to do anything for customs comming and going. i have a wisner 4 x 5 c330 canon 20 d i ahve a 90 mm 135 mm 210mm 300mm for the 4x5 65mm 135mm and 180mm for the c330 and 16-35mm 24- 70mm and 70 - 200 for the canon i will be on the sea cloud (a sailing ship) going down the coast of spain to lisbon . i am at a total loss what to take. is the c330 enough for film landscapes ect alnog with the canon or should i take the the wisner.
thanks for any help you can give.
mitch

 

[thebanana]

When I travel I ALWAYS make the mistake of taking too much gear. Travel light. Your back and shoulders will thank you for it in the end

 

[copake_ham]

hi
i am leaving for europe soon and would love some advise as to what formats to take and if i need to do anything for customs comming and going. i have a wisner 4 x 5 c330 canon 20 d i ahve a 90 mm 135 mm 210mm 300mm for the 4x5 65mm 135mm and 180mm for the c330 and 16-35mm 24- 70mm and 70 - 200 for the canon i will be on the sea cloud (a sailing ship) going down the coast of spain to lisbon . i am at a total loss what to take. is the c330 enough for film landscapes ect alnog with the canon or should i take the the wisner.
thanks for any help you can give.
mitch

You're going to be on a sailing ship - bobbing along with the ocean waves and wakes. Why take the 4x5 unless there are significant onshore stops? And those are likely to be port calls - not excursions into the countryside.

So I'd skip the 4x5 altogether.

Then, I'd take the entire 330 kit which will cover the range from landscape to close-in for film.

As to the 20D - I'd take the 70-200 (but might sneak the 24-70 into my wife's bag when she isn't looking )

I'd leave the digi-wide at home. Film is better for the landscapes and you'll have that covered with the 330.

 

[Shawn Dougherty]

I'd echo what George said almost exactly. Except, I might not trust the lens with your wife!

 

[goros]

hi
i will be on the sea cloud (a sailing ship) going down the coast of spain to lisbon .
mitch

Hi Mitch,

Where is your trip starting?

I live in the Spanish North coast, near Bilbao, in the Basque Country.

Cheers

 

[Sweettea]

Rather than start a new thread I'm going to tag onto this one.
I'm going to be making a couple of international trips outside of the USA this year and have some questions:

(1) I'm going to take a SLR camera and two lenses. Do I pack these in the checked luggage or carry-on?
(2) Do I put the film in the checked or carry-on luggage?
(3) What about the X-raying of exposed film?

Thanks....
(2)

 

[polyglot]

Everything in carryon - prevents theft and gets xrayed a lot more gently. Checked cameras will be bounced or borrowed, checked film is likely to be fogged.

 

[cjbecker]

c330 with a wide and tele.

 

[Tim Gray]

Yeah, everything carry on. I routinely travel with a pair of rangefinders and a couple of lenses and some film. Make sure the film goes carry on and you shouldn't have any problems with xrays.

I tend to travel light, so the only thing that gets checked in is crap I don't care about getting damaged, i.e. clothes and toothpaste. And I try my hardest not to check that stuff in either.

 

[vpwphoto]

Man (or woman) it's all up to you. I like to come home with a trophy shot of every trip... perhaps I would take the Wisner and 2 lenses. It's all about what you want to take. Generally anymore my wife and kids don't have patience for my view camera.
I feel most liberated with my Richo Diacord (lighter than that c330).
I just got a Nikonos to mess with.

 

[ann]

Be aware that if you pack something in your checked luggage and it is "lost" they, (airlines) don't cover camera equipment, computer equipment , etc.

Somewhere someone got a very expensive gitzo and ball head on the cheap! And this was in the airport before leaving town.

 

[canuhead]

call me crazy but I'd just bring along the c330, the 65 and 135. I'd also bring along or buy a small waterproof p&s for all your digital needs. everything carry on as previous posters have suggested. otherwise, enjoy the trip and don't let photography get in the way

 

[goros]

The OP 's trip was four years ago and he did bring the C330. The thread has been used by another porter to ask advice about how to carry the photo gear in a air trip.

From my experience, the only way to be safe, as polyglot and Tim Gray have already said, is to take everything, gear and film, with you in your cabin baggage. Everything that goes in the check-in baggage is very keen to be either fogged by the x-rays or directly stolen.

Cheers

 

[Newt_on_Swings]

xrays are no fun... do a search on kodaks tests with Xray fogging. Significant fogging from just 1 pass, esp with color films. try to ask for a hand search of film (TSA may not care and xray it anyway), buy the film there (maybe very hard), develop it there (I dont trust labs with my stuff) or mail it back with a carrier that is not big on Xraying materials.

The problem is not just an even coat of fog, BUT very nasty banding issues. imagine a light leak. not fun at all

its a tough thing to do nowadays. I was on a cruise last summer and they Xrayed my bag every time we boarded the ship. (I carried a digital only though)

 

[Diapositivo]

If you use slow film (100, 200 ISO) and don't make many air trips, you should be safe from fogging even if they inspect them with X-rays. The problem with X-rays, from what I gather, comes with faster film and with repeated exposure to x-rays.

So it all depends on how many boardings you are going to make, and which film you use. Personally I would bring with me only slow film, and buy locally the faster film, if needed. You can also have the film developed locally, film seems to be quite in use in Italy nowadays and I suppose the same is true for other European countries, you will not have problems in having your slide film processed.

 

[Early Riser]

xrays are no fun... do a search on kodaks tests with Xray fogging. Significant fogging from just 1 pass, esp with color films. try to ask for a hand search of film (TSA may not care and xray it anyway), buy the film there (maybe very hard), develop it there (I dont trust labs with my stuff) or mail it back with a carrier that is not big on Xraying materials.

The problem is not just an even coat of fog, BUT very nasty banding issues. imagine a light leak. not fun at all

its a tough thing to do nowadays. I was on a cruise last summer and they Xrayed my bag every time we boarded the ship. (I carried a digital only though)

Newt are you talking about film in CHECKED luggage?? Because the banding lines only occur in checked bags. Kodak doesn't give a warning about carry on luggage unless it's being x-rayed 5 times. And with all the travel I do with film, I haven't had any issues with carrying on film, and I'll carry as much as 200 rolls at a time.

In the US by Federal regulation ( FAR section 108. 17 E, FAR 108.205 E) if you insist on a had search they HAVE to give you one. They may be reluctant, but they HAVE to do it anyway. I would be careful though if you're carrying sheet film, because I have heard from several people that when they handed over boxes of sheet film, they were opened. So if you travel with sheet film expect to get it x-rayed.

Also consider not just the exposure to x-ray scanners as a factor but flight duration. The longer the flight at high altitude the greater the exposure to cosmic and solar radiation. And not just your film, you too!!

 

[johnnywalker]

As others have said, the x-rays used for checked baggage are much more powerful than those used for carry-on. I have never had a problem with x-ray damage to carry-on film, including film that was x-rayed more than five times and some Delta 3200. All I ever take is black and white, but from what I've read you don't have to worry about carry-on colour film either.

 

[SHbaker11]

I bet you will have a fun travel with your camera with you but I agree with thebanana always travel light so you will not be stressed out carrying all those gears and enjoy your vacation with a perfect captures.

 

[jorj]

As others have said, the x-rays used for checked baggage are much more powerful than those used for carry-on. I have never had a problem with x-ray damage to carry-on film, including film that was x-rayed more than five times and some Delta 3200. All I ever take is black and white, but from what I've read you don't have to worry about carry-on colour film either.

The official TSA rules say that they will x-ray carry-on film rated under 800 speed. Which is why I always make sure I've got at least one roll of Delta 3200 in the bag. And I always tell them that I push process to help seal the deal.

Having said that, I've never had a problem with xrays fogging my film. I also never want to have that happen because of a mis-calibrated xray machine.

The TSA's official word on traveling with film is a good read before you travel. Google "tsa film xray". I'd post a link but APUG doesn't like that I haven't made 5 posts here yet.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Aside from the practical reasons to travel light, to avoid being burdened physically by too much stuff to carry or aesthetically by having too many choices to deal with practically in the field, I've found that when I revisit some place over a period of years, I like the images to have some unity of form, so they can eventually all look good next to each other in a portfolio or an album or a show. You don't want to end up at the end of the process, where you're trying to assemble a portfolio of 10 images, and you've got nine square format B&W prints that flow and one terrific 35mm color slide that you would just hate to leave out, but that doesn't fit with the other nine, and you're wishing you'd been carrying the 6x6 camera at that moment.

It doesn't have to be too restrictive, but, along the lines of, say, for a certain place deciding to shoot only medium format color transparencies, or maybe a 35mm folder with a fast lens and fast film for night and a medium format folder of the same era with medium or slow speed film for day, or only 4x5" B&W, or only negs big enough to contact print. I can use my other cameras for other projects, but setting a few formal boundaries at the beginning of the project can help later.