Flying - Hand luggage or Cargo hold ?

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Is there a concensus on what is the best way to pack camera equipment for flights.

I'll be taking camera, spare lenses, tripod, monopod and heads.
I'll put the tripod/monopod stuff in my main luggage but would sooner keep my camera and lenses with me in my hand luggage.

Is this ok or could heavy lenses be seen as possible weapons :D
I don't want to risk having anything confiscated.
 
I don't think you'll have problems with lenses. I never have.
 
I've always taken camera bag with assortment of glass
never been a problem
 
Skypilot said:
Is there a concensus on what is the best way to pack camera equipment for flights.

I'll be taking camera, spare lenses, tripod, monopod and heads.
I'll put the tripod/monopod stuff in my main luggage but would sooner keep my camera and lenses with me in my hand luggage.

Is this ok or could heavy lenses be seen as possible weapons :D
I don't want to risk having anything confiscated.
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make sure you take the vat receipts for all your stuff...when you come back through customs they may stop you and check that

i got stopped coming back from majorca with 2 nikon bodies and 4 nikon lenses and a fuji 6x7
my wife had her minolta x700 and lenses
we had receipts for them all

during our discussion with customs guy he sort of slipped in...is camera gear quite cheap in majorca?

cave customs

and yes we carried them in gadget bags as hand luggage
 
you would be well advised to take your camera & lenses with you into the passenger cabin, hold baggage does sometimes go missing. Check with the company your travelling with, they probably only allow one piece of hand baggage, with weight & size limitations, doubt you'll have problems with security.
Hope this helps :)
ps, thought you might have already known this with a username of "skypilot" :)
 
Hand baggage all the time- and if possible store by your feet (depending on space etc)- as turbulence sometimes causes the over-head baggage to come open.
 
Thanks guys, I feel a little happier now.

I wouldn't know where to lay my hands on my receipts though.
 
If you're flying with Alitalia put it in the hand luggage, they loose baggage quite frequently. I always put my camera equipment in hand luggage.
 
Carry on only for me :thumbs:

Checking in is a no go unless storing the gear in a bomb proof peli-case, there's zero chance that I would trust a baggage handler and I would advise folk to do the same.

T
 
Skypilot said:
Thanks guys, I feel a little happier now.

I wouldn't know where to lay my hands on my receipts though.
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You shouldn't need your receipts. I fly around 150 times a year with my camera bag and have yet to be stopped at customs.
 
AB22 Easy Tiger said:
You shouldn't need your receipts. I fly around 150 times a year with my camera bag and have yet to be stopped at customs.
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that is experience for you
one guy has 1000 experiences
the other has the same one 1000 times

i can only say i am glad we had our paperwork right....right?:wave:
 
Have always travelled with my kit as hand luggage. Have had shiny things go missing from hold luggage before :(
 
yeah, always pack as carry on!

I've just been looking for a thread on another forum about someone that packed his DLSR with the lens attached in a proper SLR bag and then let them put it in the hold.

When he gets to the other end, the lens has been snapped from the body completely ruining the lens. Expensive mistake. :(
 
Hand baggage for me, after I asked this last week. I fly out to Calgary with Air Canada tomorrow, luckily I can carry both my laptop and camera bag as hand luggage (rang their helpline in the end).
 
Definitely hand baggage. I would never trust the carrier to look after my gear. Last time I travelled in May this year I just used a small camera rucksack with some room for extras.
 
Carry on, all the time. Never had a problem before, although i do have more kit than ever.

One thing to remember is to completely empty your kit bag before you go away.

Evaluate what you are defo going to need while away. Then put things like memory cards spare batteries, filters, chargers and all the little extras that you will not need while flying in your hold baggage. This reduces the weight of your carry on, and also the stuff that security have to look at.

One point about the receipts to show that you already had the equipment before flying. Got a camera phone? Take a photo of your kit with it before you fly. Any issues at customs on the way back then show them the photo with the time stamp, proving you had all the stuff before you went.
 
Never, ever, never put your camera bodies and lenses in the hold!

My wife and I packed several glass frames in boxes with layers and layers of bubble wrap etc. Bomb proof we thought, but they were smashed to pieces when we unwrapped them at the other end.

I'm not sure how they broke them but I assumed they played football with the suitcase or dropped it several times from a great height.
 
mrcrow said:
make sure you take the vat receipts for all your stuff...when you come back through customs they may stop you and check that

i got stopped coming back from majorca with 2 nikon bodies and 4 nikon lenses and a fuji 6x7
my wife had her minolta x700 and lenses
we had receipts for them all

during our discussion with customs guy he sort of slipped in...is camera gear quite cheap in majorca?

cave customs

and yes we carried them in gadget bags as hand luggage
Click to expand...

Majorca is in europe is it not, and from my understanding that means you will pay vat (spanish), which means you are covered and perfectly fine to bring in goods without paying any extra (same way you can buy off Amazon.de etc and not have to pay extra), that is one benefit of the EU.

I've never had any problem bringing equipment back in the country, however if they did look they would notice my equipment had been well used anyway, so unless they are still in boxes I cant see a problem.

Glass and bodies in carry on luggage, tripods/monopods in hold, that's how I do it.:)
 
what about the xray machines that all hand luggage has to go through, is it ok for cameras and lenses to go through that?

i fly in 3 weeks time and want to take my camera.

Cheers
 
jaybiss said:
what about the xray machines that all hand luggage has to go through, is it ok for cameras and lenses to go through that?

i fly in 3 weeks time and want to take my camera.

Cheers
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Sometimes they'll ask you to remove any electronics from the bag, sometimes they won't! If they do, they'll still be X rayed, just separately!

I usually just show them how much there is inside and they put it through as it is :lol:
 
so it won't cause any damage/ wipe memory cards?

thats my main concern lol
 
Went to Germany and back last week (Easyjet) with no bother. 40D and 400D plus three lenses in a Lowepro pack as hand luggage with the tripod in my suitcase as hold luggage. The Lowepro fitted comfortably into their baggage size checker at check-in and was shoved under the seat during take-off. One thing that puzzled me was that German customs asked me to switch the cameras on when boarding the return flight. They didn't look at the photos, just saw the sensor cleaning message pop up on the screen and were happy. Not sure why they asked that? Went to Poland with the same gear last Xmas and they never bothered.
 
jaybiss said:
so it won't cause any damage/ wipe memory cards?

thats my main concern lol
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memory cards are fine passing through security, I often take a camera through (most days), never had a problem :)
 
MisterRigsby said:
Went to Germany and back last week (Easyjet) with no bother. 40D and 400D plus three lenses in a Lowepro pack as hand luggage with the tripod in my suitcase as hold luggage. The Lowepro fitted comfortably into their baggage size checker at check-in and was shoved under the seat during take-off. One thing that puzzled me was that German customs asked me to switch the cameras on when boarding the return flight. They didn't look at the photos, just saw the sensor cleaning message pop up on the screen and were happy. Not sure why they asked that? Went to Poland with the same gear last Xmas and they never bothered.
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To check the batteries aren't bombs? Strange only the Germans do it though!
 
I wouldn't even leave the tripod in the cargo hold, had a friend who did that and the head was broken after the flight.
 
They turn them on to check the camera isn't packed with semtex. Had that a few times flying out of Nairobi. Don't try and hand carry a tripod. Some places will refuse it. Wrap it in a jumper in your main luggage.
 
purpleclouds said:
To check the batteries aren't bombs? Strange only the Germans do it though!
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we had it flying to and from the USA on our honeymoon. as well as mobiles, mine was off and takes a good 2-3 mins to turn on.

My back pack had my external harddrives, cameras lens, gorillapod, phone, all the cables, and the wifi card for my laptop.

I opened the bag and it just looked like a bomb, the lad had a sort through asked what the wifi card was (ignored the HDD) and he was fine with it all.

Same coming back. :)
 
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