Travel tips with RED / Video Gear

[Corey Jenkins]

I'm mainly an advertising photographer but have been getting into video a lot more the last two months and already booking a few travel jobs for it. I travel a good bit for still jobs (30k+ miles this year) so I have that side of things figured out pretty well with regards to lights, batteries, media rates, etc.

I picked up an Epic-MX from the forums last month and have a nice Pelican carryon case for it an a few parts. It's tough because I have the same case for my still set up and airlines only allow one as a carry on. I've tried backpacks but gear ends up breaking in them no matter how careful you are. I hate the idea of checking a camera under the plane even if it's in a custom Pelican case. For still / motion jobs I will probably travel with an assistant in the future and require that for the client.

My bigger question is glass. I just picked up some Rokinon Cine DS lenses and plan to outfit a Pelican case with them. What is your experience checking glass under the plane like this? Is it better to check one of the camera cases instead of lenses? Both seem very delicate and I see American Airlines drop bags all the time.

Any useful tips on general travel would be awesome as well! If this isn't in the right section of the forums please move it, I apologize in advance.

Thanks,
Corey
www.coreyjenkinsphoto.com

 

[Levi Arnold]

I've traveled quite a bit in the US and overseas with my gear (though not as much as other people on here) and I've normally kept the body with me incase my luggage gets lost, but everything else has gone underneath the plane. If you have your stuff in a properly padded Pelican case, you don't need to worry about it. I've never had issues with putting my stuff under the plane if it's in a pelican case.

I just got one of the new Pelican air cases (the 1615 or something like that) and it fits my RED, stills, Osmo, chargers, glass and hard drives in one.

Hope that helps a little!

Levi

 

[Brendan H. Banks]

If you find yourself restricted by carry-on (can't give to an assistant traveling with you or anything), then I would ship. I travel for most of my work and I am able to put all batteries, 2 camera bodies (gh4 with external recorders), most glass, and expensive accessories in my carry-on's. I do a 1510 pelican rolling case for batteries and accessories and a CineBag cinematographer's bag as my personal item with laptop, camera bodies, and glass.

I'd still carry-on as much as I could, but ship the rest. (f you order from a place like LensRentals, BorrowLenses, etc you can check out how they back things for shipment. Extra portabrace sleeves and padded lens cases inside a padded pelican with airbags to fill in the gaps are key. If you have a FedEx account you can save your baggage info so each time you travel you can just select which pelican and weight, and print your label at home. If you do ship batteries, ship them via ground and discharge them to 30%.

 

[Nicholas Austin Skinner]

Any useful tips on general travel would be awesome as well!

When traveling abroad with your kit, always get a ATA Carnet form to declare your tools. Most of the time, customs won't stop you. But when they do stop you, if you don't have a Carnet, you could owe big fines and taxes that may be difficult if not impossible to recover.

I've passed through customs in China, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Israel, USA, and transited through Russia and Japan as well with bodies, lenses, numerous pelican cases, and even a huge hard case for a fully assembled Acecore Neo heavy lifting UAV. In all instances but one, we have not been stopped. The one time we did get stopped we ended up having to pay several thousand dollars in fines for not having a ATA Carnet. Word to the wise: Get a ATA Carnet; it could save you thousands of dollars and the trouble of having customs impound your tools for days or even weeks while sorting it out.

Best,

Nicholas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATA_Carnet

 

[Ryan l Wood]

how is it going through customs? any problems?

 

[Spencer Weaver]

Well, you can't check the lithium batteries, those have to ride with you in carry-on. And I wouldn't check the camera body either. So, if you know you have to carry on batteries and the camera body it's not going to leave much room for more than a few small lenses.

But id rather ship my camera FedEx then let it ride checked on a plane.

Best bet may be to fly with crew members and spred the gear between roll ons and that 2nd personal item bag allowance.

 

[Noah Posnick]

I don't understand what the difference would be checking a case vs shipping it via Fedex (assuming it's air, not ground). Isn't it going into cargo on a plane either way?

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

Never check your camera body. i agree, I'd rather fedex. Yes I've had one taken.

 

[emil_h]

But id rather ship my camera FedEx then let it ride checked on a plane.

So you rather ship your camera FedEx which ends up on a plane (unless you do ground) vs checking in your camera on a plane? Lol I don't like checking or shipping my camera, but idk how you came up with your logic on this one. Whether you ship or check in, with insurance you're covered.

 

[emil_h]

I don't understand what the difference would be checking a case vs shipping it via Fedex (assuming it's air, not ground). Isn't it going into cargo on a plane either way?

Bingo

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

So you rather ship your camera FedEx which ends up on a plane (unless you do ground) vs checking in your camera on a plane? Lol I don't like checking or shipping my camera, but idk how you came up with your logic on this one. Whether you ship or check in, with insurance you're covered.

Mostly from never having an issue with fed ex and having several issues with gear stolen/misplaced with airlines. So personal experience. And Ive traveled with gear A LOT.

 

[Brody_B]

I always have 2 carryons. One for my Weapon and batteries, and one for my lenses, both the same actual case that the Weapon package ships in, which are super small and perfect carryon size. Everything else goes in the plane storage. safest way there, and I just don't trust anything else.

 

[Satsuki Murashige]

I don't understand what the difference would be checking a case vs shipping it via Fedex (assuming it's air, not ground). Isn't it going into cargo on a plane either way?

No size/weight restrictions when shipping freight, for one thing. If you have a lot of Pelicans or ATA shipping cases that are over-sized and packed in a particular way that is better for your workflow (living on the shelves of a camera truck for example), then it may make sense to ship ahead, rather than try to repack gear in a sub-optimal way so you can fly with it.

The other reason would be convenience - you ship ahead to a local rental house/production office/base camp and know ahead of time that everything arrived safely (or not). No scrambling last minute to find a replacement for lenses or batteries that got lost/damaged on your flight to location. And you don't need to drag a crap load of cases through the airport with not enough people or carts.

Now, if your camera package is small enough and spread among enough travelers, then it's not as big of a hassle to travel with gear. But too often, it's two guys checking a half-dozen 80lbs Pelicans, a bunch of tubes for stands and sticks, and then struggling to fit AB or V-locks into their personal bags. That just sucks.

 

[gandalf de maupeou]

For those like me who didn't know about ATA carnet. Here you can find more information about them:

http://www.atacarnet.com/videos






...

 

[RobMNeilson]

Going to be travelling with some gear this week. Normally I'd just rent a nice set of lenses from our destination, but the next two jobs there isn't really the budget for that so I'm taking my own glass. I'd like to bring my full prime set, but I can't carry it on and the thought of putting that in the hands of the airport baggage collectors...is less pleasant.

Provided the lenses will be travelling in a pelican with foam cutouts (with the aperture set open, and perhaps a little extra bubble wrap with each lens) should I worry too much? My plan B is carrying on a pair of RED Pro zooms, but they aren't my preferred glass.

 

[BrendanLeahy]

I always have 2 carryons. One for my Weapon and batteries, and one for my lenses, both the same actual case that the Weapon package ships in, which are super small and perfect carryon size. Everything else goes in the plane storage. safest way there, and I just don't trust anything else.

I second this. If my clothes and other misc. items are checked in, I'd much prefer those being delayed over my camera gear.

 

[Grayson Fahrner]

Wear it.

If I understand TSA regulation correctly, then anything that is literally on your body, such as a vest or jacket, does not count toward your bag minimum and so I wore one of those scottie vests with at least 60 pounds of batteries and small hard electronics when I took a small mountain of gear weighing 500 pounds from JFK to central africa and back.

Batteries were the main frustration and "technically" any battery that is connected to your device doesn't count toward your spare limit, so I slapped one of those dual battery mounts on the back of one of the reds so it didn't count against my spare limit.

Carnet is a pain, but so is paying thousands of dollars in the off chance they check your gear. Make sure to have it "stamped" at every airport. I was in a rush on the way back and couldn't get a stamp through one country, and the USA TSA guy yelled at me at JFK for not doing that but he was right and just make sure to stamp it everywhere you travel.

 

[Ted Parkes]

Traveling with gear

Traveling with gear

There is no one easy answer. I work on all kinds of different size productions all over the world. Yes if it’s a bigger production then spreading the important gear among crew is great and so is shipping. But for the smaller jobs it’s more difficult. Along with all the batteries I strip the cameras down to the bare minimum to be able to shoot including at least one lens and media in the event luggage is delayed. I also look to rent gear at destination more often then ever before partly due to the cost of extra baggage particularly on international flights. Regardless I research a couple rental houses in the area and have their info with me just in case. It’s always hard and time consuming to be searching for a proper rental house at the last minute in an emergency. The ATA carnet is only necessary if you are leaving the country with your gear.

Ted Parkes
@parkes.t

 

[Brent G Miller Jr]

Never ever check cameras under the airplane unless you want to run the very high risk of them being stolen. When I travel we only check things like production carts, lighting, sliders etc. Electronic gear such as RED brains, batteries and lenses are spread amungst the crew as carry-ons in Pelican 1510 cases. “Jason Cases” makes great custom cut cases for any lenses you have and is the best way to ensure their protection. If you’re traveling solo then ship extra gear via fedex/ups as it’s 100x safer then checking gear into a commercial airliner.