Flying with camera gear

A question that I am frequently asked is how I carry my camera gear when travelling by plane. With all of the delays, missed connections, and damaged, stolen, or lost luggage these days, it can be quite stressful getting to your destination even if you don’t check any baggage.
The solution that has worked for me is coming up with a “travel kit” of gear that takes up very little space and will cover 99% of anything I ever want or need to shoot. I pack that gear into an “Airport Addicted” backpack made by Thinktank Photo along with most of my clothing. The airport addicted bag was designed to hold the maximum amount of gear possible while still meeting most airline carry-on restrictions. You would be amazed at what I can stuff in this bag and along with my expedition 5 backpack (loaded with the rest of my clothes) carried on as my one “personal item”, I can fit everything I need for a 5 day trip without having to check a single piece of luggage.
When I arrive at my destination, I simply move all the camera gear into my smaller backpack and move all of my clothes into the large one until I’m ready to head back to the airport.
The only down side to this is that the bag can get quite heavy, usually around 40 pounds fully packed, when you have a long way to walk! They have since come out with a “roller” version of this bag and if I traveled a lot more, I would seriously consider getting one.

Now that I’ve covered how I get my gear from here to there, I’ll share what I take and why I feel it’s such a good balance of function and space savings.
99% of what I shoot is between 17-200mm focal length. This includes macro work but a dedicated macro lens is fairly limited so I choose to carry a set of extension tubes to use with my 70-200mm lens. Throw in a 2X tele-converter and that one lens lets me shoot from extreme close-ups all the way out to 400mm. (That in itself is the most practical combination in my line-up.) I then bring a 17-40mm, and a 28-70mm and that’s it! They all share the same filter diameter which cuts down on accessories needed as well. My tripod, with the ballhead removed, attaches to the outside of the bag, my flash cards, spare batteries, and assorted filters are all tucked away in separate zippered compartments inside.

Here are some images of this set-up I quickly shot today while packing for my upcoming workshop in Maine with Kathleen Clemons. We will be driving the coastline of Maine for 4 days, shooting everything from lighthouses to lobsters, and I know that I have all the gear I need for anything that we find along the way.


Ron Goldman


As you can see, there is plenty of room left for clothes in the main compartment, and there is a laptop compartment on the reverse side as well.



All of my accessories fit nicely in the top flap compartments.


My "travel kit". Small, lightweight, and very functional.


Both bags packed and ready to go. My small travel tripod is attached and the ballhead is safely stored away inside.

I think I'm done with the boring quickie socks with 2 strands of DK weight yarn. Most of my DK weight is gone and as you can see, I keep running out of colors while knitting the 8-hour socks.




I'm making the Cathedral Mittens which is a Lizbeth Upitis pattern from Homespun Handknit. I'm going to have to add some black and other colors to the cuff later as embroidery to make the colors work better. It has been years since I knit a slip stitch pattern but I'm amazed at how slowly it is going. I could have knit 3 color rows faster I think.

Peaches hopes everyone spends a relaxing weekend in their favorite box.
She is exhausted from a week spent napping, begging for more food, and tossing wastebaskets around loudly at 3 am.

Puppy Gone Wild

Bewitching Gloves

A dark cave.
In the middle a cauldron boiling.
Thunder.
Enter the 3 witches.

So begins Act IV, Scene I from Shakespeare's Macbeth.
Of course it is sunny and very hot here and nothing is cooking in my cauldron but here are my Halloween gloves with the chorus of the three witches on the gauntlet cuff.





I used Knitpicks' Palette: almost an entire skein of black, a small amount of white and less than 2 yards of red and orange. The cuffs use size 3mm dpns or circs and the hands and fingers use size 2.5 mm. The pattern is HERE.

I'm not quite sure what to knit next although my project to knit up all my DK weight yarn into thick socks continues. I hope some cold weather arrives soon to give me more knitting energy.