Traveling with gear help?

G

guysmilez

Active member
I find myself always needing to bring with a little more equipment every time I travel. Now I am at the point to try and find different ways to travel with lights maybe some stands and other misc. equipment. Currently I’m looking to try and pre pack everything in a big box and mail it to the location in advance via ups/FedEx/usps but the pricing doesn’t seem to be much cheaper than just checking it on the plane. Has anyone here have experience in finding an inexpensive way of traveling with good-sized box with led lights other stuff such as tripods?

I plan on always carrying on my camera.
 
Pele case in the cargo hold is how we do it. Camera with us at all times, there are some great bags available if you need to pack loads of kit - some of the LowerPro roller ones are fantastic. It's always a bit stressful moving kit around like that though..
 
I usually work as a one-man-band so when I fly I keep my kit pared down to three bags. The two carry-ons are a peli 1510 with camera and lenses. It stays with me except in commuter jets where it has to be gate checked. I had a bad experience with the pick and pluck foam and the padded dividers so I have custom cut foam to keep everything safe even when it's in the cargo hold. The second carry on is a backpack that contains any smaller fragile items that can't fit in the peli as well as clothing. Bag 3 is a padded tripod bag and gets checked. It carries my tripod, monopod, light stands, and usually gets stuffed with clothes for extra protection.

I occasionally get a bit of grief for carrying on both the backpack and the peli, but I politely explain that the peli is carrying a fancy camera that the airline doesn't want to be responsible for. I've never had any issues.
 
Thanx for the responses. I've been really trying to find a solution to ship equipment ahead of time. it sucks to see that companies can ship rental stuff so cheap round trip and yet when i priced it out it came to like 4x the price round trip.
 
guysmilez said:
it sucks to see that companies can ship rental stuff so cheap round trip and yet when i priced it out it came to like 4x the price round trip.
Click to expand...

Besides having an account, they're also getting a good sized discount for VOLUME. Even with an account, I still can't ship as cheaply as my dealers.

Also, if you have the time, ship GROUND. You will see significant savings. I shipped some gear ahead of me from NC to Michigan a few weeks ago. 75lbs in a 1650 for $40. I also shipped two monitors off to NY today for calibration. Sent them regular overnight(Mon arrival since today is Fri) so that they can get them turned around and back to me before the holiday, in-case something comes up. Regular overnight was $169. Ground which would have been two business days was 1/10th of that: $16
 
Bern Caughey said:
I've never used Southwest Cargo but sounds interesting.

http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/1560

Note this article is from 2006.
Click to expand...

Air Cargo can be a wonderful thing. I use Alaska Airlines Goldstreak to ship masters to the factory for replication. I can drop it sunday night for the next available flight and it's there by the next morning for less than Fedex would charge to ship it out on Friday. To ship anything more than a pound though, you need to become a vetted "known shipper". It's not too hard, but it is another hoop to jump through.
On the subject of Southwest, they're one of the few left who will still let you fly with two checked bags at no charge.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top