Pelican Cases (Carry On & Check in)

[Nick Gardner]

Last time I checked, you can check as many lion batteries you want as long as they are under the limit and "attached to a device". In my case that would be a charger. I ship one attached to my 8" monitor, and 6 attached to battery chargers, and I take 2 to 4 in the body case depending on the job. You can't ship batteries by them selves. Which kind of sucks, because in my opinion they are way safer in my battery case which has individual foam lined compartments for the batteries and they are less likely to short when dropped or run over by a fork lift, two of airline baggage handler's favorite past times.

Nick

 

[Shane Kelly]

http://safetravel.dot.gov/quick_chart.html

Looks like you may have a way around it, Nick. As long as they are under 100 watt-hours and installed on a charger. I never thought about "installing" them on a charger.

 

[David W. Jones]

Notice too that several of those cases in the photo are actually Storm cases, not Pelican. I'm a fan of the Storm over the Pelican. Both are great cases, but the Storm latches win hands down in my book. No knuckle busters or lost fingernails like with the Pelicans.

+1 Storm Case over Pelican.

 

[Michael Frymus]

Carry On: iM2500
Checked In: iM2875

Do you think these are good choices?
I want to get Storm Cases over the Pelican now.

 

[Mark Phelan]

Carry On: iM2500
Checked In: iM2875

Do you think these are good choices?
I want to get Storm Cases over the Pelican now.

The smaller case is the Storm carry on, it's the biggest you can get as a carry on. The larger 2875 case is very deep at 12" and you might soon find it too deep unless you start stacking items. All depends on what you're going to actually be taking. I have two of the 2500 cases for carry on and neither of them has my camera in them, it's too tall in it's current configuration with a handle attached. My camera case currently is the 2620 and it fits the camera perfectly along with two Quad Chargers and four Redvolt XLs. It's close to being the ideal setup, but not quite. I continue to play with the cases, depending on the job assignment needs, which is another good reason to get the adjustable foam dividers versus the pluck foam or having custom foam made.

You might consider the iM2950 size for your check-in case. That one is working well for me. In all of my cases I use the foam dividers, but I really don't like the fact they're black. That's a hangup I have with the Storm cases, they don't offer anything but black interiors for their foam dividers. Not good when everything else in the case is black too. That's a plus for some of the Pelican cases. You'd think since they are now owned by the same company they would get this figured out. I also have the 2975 which is a beast to wrangle. It usually weighs around 85 to 90lbs fully loaded.

Nothing wrong with the Pelican cases, I still own a couple of them as well. For purchasing, I found good deals with Deployable Systems, but everybody else carries them too. http://www.dscases.com/DS/

 

[Shiblon Wixom]

Your main concern with checked in gear isn't usually the size of the case but the loaded weight, I have a medium sized storm case and fully loaded with accessory gear it's 75-90lbs, I end up with large over weight fees if I'm not careful. Always take enough core gear as carry-on so that when your luggage gets "lost" you still have a working camera package

 

[stu aull]

I spent _DAYS_ working thru specs vs price, etc.... Backpack? Hard roller? And it had to be carry-on spec.
My needs were:
Had to carry the Important Stuff: camera, my 3 lenses, PIX recorder, power x3 (by Law)
Had to be able to keep the camera in more-or-less PRE-ASSEMBLED configuration, for run-and-gun.
That meant all this stuff remains attached to the body:
-sidehandle
-lens
-Red Handle
-Bomb
-battery/mount
-tripod plate
-basic cabling for audio
-Noga arm for PIX

So this became the Deal-breaker config. And damn few cases in the Carry-on Class could handle the dimensions (esp thickness/width) of the camera loaded up this way.
I was hoping to avoid a hard-case/roller because the case alone was going to be 15lbs+ empty (ended up 57 loaded up). But in the end only the Pelican 1560 fit the bill at its price point ($380 with the optional DIVIDER pack and the Lid Organizer system). The tow-handle/dolly wheels combo made this acceptable in spite the weight.

I purposely bought the I-Dare-You-Too-Steal me Orange hoping would be thieves will be reluctant to be The-Guy-Seen-Stealing-The-Orange-Case... (we'll see)

Quality is superb. Divider kit is superior to PITA foam, but obv a personal choice. I just used the excess dividers as fold-over pads betw top and gear.

And now I actively weight-lift to be able to walk this Bad-Boy across gravel airstrips

Stu Aull
SX 199
Alaska

 

[Nick Morrison]

What are the advantages/disadvantages of their 'Pick-n-Pluck foam' vs the standard movable dividers?

Standard movable dividers are more functional, as they are easy to change and adapt depending on the kit you want to pack. The "Pick N Pluck" is more customizable to a specific tight fit for specific gear, however...I have found that it "breaks down" into small pieces of foam dust, that over time I don't think is great for lenses. I am in the process of swapping the foam out for padded inserts for this reason.

 

[Les C.]

Standard movable dividers are more functional, as they are easy to change and adapt depending on the kit you want to pack. The "Pick N Pluck" is more customizable to a specific tight fit for specific gear, however...I have found that it "breaks down" into small pieces of foam dust, that over time I don't think is great for lenses. I am in the process of swapping the foam out for padded inserts for this reason.

Thanks! That's useful to know.

Had you ever looked at TrekPak? http://trekpak.com/ that had a successful kickStarter program?

They seem to have some Pelican case inserts - and I was impressed by the product promo, but ... not having actually used one or any case for that matter, I may be easily impressed.

One other question. I noticed that Stu was planning to pack his camera with the lens attached to the body.

Is that a good idea, even for just moving around town?

 

[Mark Phelan]

Thanks! That's useful to know.

Had you ever looked at TrekPak? http://trekpak.com/ that had a successful kickStarter program?

They seem to have some Pelican case inserts - and I was impressed by the product promo, but ... not having actually used one or any case for that matter, I may be easily impressed.

One other question. I noticed that Stu was planning to pack his camera with the lens attached to the body.

Is that a good idea, even for just moving around town?

Hadn't seen that, very interesting and a great idea. And more importantly, they have it in light gray, not black!

 

[stu aull]

One other question. I noticed that Stu was planning to pack his camera with the lens attached to the body.

Is that a good idea, even for just moving around town?

Well - I don't expect to be chucking the case out of a low-flying airplane
And since it is as a carry-on under my control, I can dodge the enthusiastic baggage guys, so I am not worried. My Betacam survived 22yrs of airport handling with a big-assed Canon 14x lens on a wee 2/3rds mount, so I think the RED Canon mount is up to the task! Now - I would NOT pack it with my 70-200 attached mind you!
But each to his own.
Like I said - I need mine to be up and rolling quick - so the 24-70 is there ready to go...

Stu Aull
SX199
Alaska