What to bring and how to pack when shooting overseas.

 
I have always been fas­ci­nated with bags and how pho­tog­ra­phers pack their gear. I remem­ber read­ing the equip­ment lists of National Geo­graphic pho­tog­ra­phers when I was younger. I used to won­der how they moved around the world with so much stuff.

Those times, as you might have noticed, are over. Nowa­days, we need to deal with increas­ingly tighter air­line safety, weight, and size regulations.

We have cov­ered the “essen­tial” video gear on pre­vi­ous posts. How­ever, when it comes to decid­ing what to bring on a trip as carry on, what to check, and what to leave behind, the the­ory becomes much more interesting.

I tend to start with the per­sonal stuff. Med­i­cines, pain killers, toi­letries, travel doc­u­ments, etc. Some of these items are not eas­ily replace­able; some are, but it would be incon­ve­nient to for­get them (think pass­port, credit cards, or headphones).

Dis­claimer: The images below are taken with my phone, sim­ply to illus­trate this arti­cle. They are not intended to be fine art mas­ter­pieces of any kind. And yes, the “back­ground” is my bed.

Per­sonal Stuff.

This is my “rolling stu­dio” when shoot­ing on loca­tion in New York. Add a fluid head tri­pod, mono­pod, three hot lights, umbrel­las, cables and light stands.  It is a lot, but two peo­ple can eas­ily carry every­thing even on pub­lic transportation.

Click to keep reading

We use the small bag for the entire audio sys­tem. We use exclu­sively Rode prod­ucts.

Rolling Stu­dio.

Depend­ing on the trip, you need to decide which bags to take. I have them all and I have used them all, and I have con­sis­tently found that Tenba deliv­ers the best qual­ity and features.

My con­sid­er­a­tions for this trip:

• I’ll be shoot­ing stills and video in Dubai for 10 days. From there I’ll go to Abu Dhabi by bus, then on to Sohar and Mus­cat (Oman) for another week, and then back to Dubai by car. This means that I’ll need to take a lot of stuff with me, but travel on loca­tion. I’ll need a backpack.

• I try to take as much gear with me as carry on, but with video (and audio) it is impos­si­ble to fit it all. I am fly­ing Emi­rates from JFK to DBX, so I’m allowed to take ONE 15lb carry on and check TWO 50lb bags. This great web­site www.luggagelimits.com offers detailed bag­gage allowance infor­ma­tion for more than 100 airlines.

• I won’t need to bring lights. The client will be rent­ing them locally.

• For sup­port I’m plan­ning  to bring a Benro Video Tri­pod (light, small, and sturdy), a mono­pod, and my won­der­ful Cinevate Sim­plis, which I can fold in my bag’s lap­top compartment.

Here’s where the chal­lenge begins:

• The flight alone is 13 hours, and I can’t sleep on planes, so I’ll need to take a lot of enter­tain­ment with me. I’m think­ing a tablet (the bat­tery lasts 24 hours), a light mag­a­zine for take­off, head­phones, etc.

• Tenba’s Video Back­pack weighs 5.5lbs empty. The Tenba Roadie weighs 10.5lbs empty. The Tenba Mes­sen­ger weighs 2lbs empty (with all the dividers). As a ref­er­ence, my medium size Sam­sonite bag, which is not designed to pro­tect any gear, weighs 11.5lbs empty.

If air­lines really wanted to stick to the 15lbs rule I’d be in deep trou­ble, as I’d only be able to take 4lbs of equip­ment. Even if I only carry my Mac­Book Pro (5.5lbs with­out the charger), one Canon 7D body (1.8lbs) and my favorite lens, Canon’s EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM (2.9lbs), I’d be over my limit when includ­ing the bag’s weight (5.5lbs).

This is kind of a prob­lem, don’t you think?

In terms of what to bring as carry-on and what to check, my sys­tem is pretty simple:

What are the items that I absolutely need to land on my feet and start shoot­ing right away go with me? Those are the carry-on items and they go on my Video Back­pack.

What do I need to bring but can afford to lose due to delays or theft? All those items go to the Tenba Roadie and are checked.

Addi­tion­ally, I’ll be wear­ing my photo jacket and in case of emer­gency I’ll pull a trick I learned from my good friend William Vazquez.

“Air­lines weigh your lug­gage when you travel inter­na­tion­ally. They don’t just go by the num­ber of bags. They’ll charge you for the excess weight or some­times not let your bag on the plane. I’ve had to take things out of my carry-on and fill up the pock­ets of my photo vest to get my cam­eras on board. Because there’s no limit on how much I can weigh.”

The Video Back­pack holds a TON of gear. These are all the items I am tak­ing with me and I did NOT use any of the exte­rior pock­ets, except one side pocket for the Rode Shotguns.

The final weights are:
• Tenba’s Video Back­pack: 22 lbs
• Tenba Roadie: 28 lbs

Now, what am I sup­posed to wear???

On my next post I’ll be shar­ing some tips I’ve learned in my 20 years trav­el­ing with photo gear. Visit us often, and share this post with your friends.
If you are look­ing for answers to your work­flow ques­tions, book a vir­tual or on-site con­sult­ing ses­sion today.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2013 at 10:00. It is filed under Analysis, Business, Education, HDSLR Cinema, Photography, Technology, Travel, Visuals and tagged with adobe premiere pro, applications, canon, cinema, film and video, filmmaking techniques, HDSLR cinema, personal, photography, travel tips, tutorial. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.