I have an 8" dome port. I bought a Rubbermaid cake container that it fits into perfectly. I pad the cake container with a little foam, and it goes right into a checked bag, either the bag with clothes or the dive gear, protected within the BC. Has made at least 5 dive trips without a single concern. The cake container is rigid enough, the right size and weighs very little!

The Macro port usually goes in with the housing/strobes/accessories into the carry-on Porter case.

it looks like the F Lite has been discontinued - there are a few 31 inch models in stock here and but i couldn't find the smaller bag (except one online which i don't have time for). looks like it has been replaced by the Dura Lite which does not yet seem to be in stock anywhere.

so i bought a 25 inch Delsey of similar design which is the right size for me as i only have one housing plus dome and macro, etc. only problem with the Delsey is it has four casters instead of the two wheels -- doesn't look as rugged and won't be very good on rough pavement, curbs, etc.

just starting to cut some 1/2 inch plastic foam padding that i've had lying around - may rip out the lining in the lower half and glue it in

Since weight restrictions and carry on luggage has become a major issue with the airlines, I've switched from hard case check it to XS Scuba roller bag the fits in overhead compartment with ease.

Jim www.jcscuba.com

This one?
http://www.xsscuba.com/wh_carryon.html

How much and what can you fit into it?

I used to carry my underwater housing in a Lowepro Computrekker or Photo Trekker backpack. VERY sturdily built, very well padded - they've been carrying my camera gear across the world for years without a single problem to date. The only problem with them - they are heavy (3kg + when empty) and the external volume is much larger than the internal volume, due to the padding - which means they look large as well. That's not so good for carry-ons.

I just replaced this with a ThinkTank Airport Ultralight - their smaller backpack in the Airport series. Empty, the bag only weights 1 kg. It isnt as well padded as the Lowepro but it is physically a lot smaller - it is almost the same size as my laptop briefcase when I have it stuffed with laptop, papers, books, etc. And this sucker just EATS up gear.

In the TT bag, I can fit my entire macro setup:
- 1 DSLR body with 50mm lens attached
- Aquatica housing with Inon viewfinder attached (it is removable but I prefer not to take it on/off)
- Aquatica macro port with Backscatter 2x adapter attached
- 100mm macro lens
- spacer ring for the 100m macro
- 2 Inon Z240 strobes
- 1 Fisheye LED focus light
- memory card, spare batteries

If need be, I could even slip my Macbook on the outside (I usually carry my laptop in a separate laptop case, where I also put books, Archos video player and various odds and ends).

Along with this, I also bought a National Geo Medium Backpack - retro looks, not the most water-resistant of fabrics but again, a bag that is a lot bigger inside than you would guess from the outer dimensions. I could probably fit the dome port in the TT case if I wanted to go WA instead - if I want to carry my entire setup, then the NG Backpack carries the dome port and WA lenses.

I actually had the backpack weighed while leaving Bangkok, and it clocked in at 12kg - over the limit but not egregiously so, and when I pointed out that it was camera gear, they let it slide.

The only downside is that I now rely on one zipper to keep all my camera gear in place. With the Lowepro, there is an additional clip that can be fastened, which prevents the backpack from opening if the zippers fail or if you forget to close them up (before I had the Lowepro, I've wrecked a P&S housing this way; the Lowepro saved a repeat performance, this time with my 500/4, 100-400, 1D2 and 40D... my sphincter still clenches when I think of that).

With the TT, I am a little paranoid about all my gear crashing out. The zippers do look quite well made, but perhaps I'll get a locking camband to cover it.

It is my first TT bag (I'm a lifelong Lowepro guy for a bunch of reasons) and I'm very impressed.

Vandit

I have just purchased the Think Tank Airport International (also replaced my Lowepro) and I have to admit it's pretty impressive. In preparation for my trip to the keys on Saturday I have packed BOTH my macro and WA setup AND a second body. In it I have:
Subal D200 housing with one body in it
FE 2 Domeport
Macroport
2 Inons
2nd D200 body with 17-35 lens attached, and SB800 flash
10-17, 60 and 100mm lenses
As you can see I still have tons of room for arms, cables and other small stashable stuff.
And it's a roller / backpack. Of course I'm only driving to the Keys so weight and space are not an issue this week, but I thought it's a nice dry run for Sipadan later this year.

So the "ultralight" doesn't fit the dome... and the "International" is that an 8" dome you have?

Picking nits, the Samsonite F Lite 31 & the Duralite 29 are both total up to 66" and weight 15 or 15.6 lbs. Current regs. for checked baggage without extra charges, is total dimension of not more than 62" and 50 lbs. I have been using plastic trunks purchased from The Container Store. They have a set of small wheels built into one end. I pad the interior with a thin foam ground pad and reinforce the hinges with nylon and duck tape (looks lovely!). Total dimension = 61.25" and less than 5 lbs. or so. Every few years I replace my travel trunk. They are cheap (~$30 USD) so, I get several at a time. I use them for gear storage.

YMMV

I need to lighten up my carry on load. currently I take a backpack for a light weight jacket, magazines, Ipod, glasses, apple ibook, etc, and I carry a pelican with a seatool housing, 60 mm and 17-17 mm, inon strobe and a canon xti. Those of you who use a Think Tank would the smaller Airport Airstream give me enough space? I just go back from a dive vacation and it was a pain with two roller suitcases, the pelican and backpack. I like the versatility of a backpack as I tend to throw alot of stuff in it but I really would like to make things easier.

Thanks.

Wendy

I found this bag yesterday: Case Logic LLD-22
I can easily fit complete S&S D200 housing with large NX Fisheye Dome, 2x DS-125 strobes, arms etc. into main compartment. My 13" Macbook fits the lower part.
There is still some room left for other stuff or extra padding.

They claim it fits carry-on size limits of most airlines. It is within IATA limits, but 1" wider than some airlines.

Does anyone have experiance with it? I wonder how it fits overhead compartments and if there were no problems with taking it onboard.

Wendy,

Can't say for sure but I wanted a case for my Oly E-520 with housing, port and strobe (as soon as they are released) as well as a canister dive light and various other bits and bobs and compared the Airport International and the Airstream before settling for the smaller roller. My equipment should be fairly similar to yours and it will fit.

That said, if you don't plan on carrying anything else you might want to go for the International as it gives you more space for additional items (I also want to carry either a "personal item" or my regulator case so opted for the smaller bag).

after many tries at doing this most efficiently- here is my system for avoiding excess bag charges. I pack my aquatica housing and ports in my eagle creek tarmac 25, wrapped up in articles of clothing then placed dead center of my bag with other clothes padding them all around. comes in under 50 lbs. ike ds 125s go in my dive bag , akona under 10 lb bag, also wrapped in clothes. my carry on is the akona pro camera bag with cameras , lenses and all accessories. best camera bag out there. this is secure enough that if I am forced to gate check this bag, I feel good about it... as good as one can me checking cameras.

Hi,

I've got two bags:

1x KATA 207 backpack. It's not IATA-compliant, but looksrelatively small, and fits my seacam, two strobes, strobearms and ports. Only my domeport does not fit, but I check that in.

1x THINKTANK Airport International. That does not look like a camerabag, and fits about same equipment. This one is IATA size

regards,

Richard

Im in the process of getting a new set of bags to transport my camera gear to shoots and for travel.

I currently use a variety of bags depending on where im going and what i need for shoots or hauling UW gear. These bags below are the major ones i use routinely now

Pelican 1510 with padded dividers (this is carryon only, if it has to be checked it goes inside of another bag which is put in another so to conceal it)
Northface Surge backpack
Tamrac Expedition 8
Mountainsmith Tour
Mountainsmith Day (on order)
Mountainsmith Network (this is a loptop briefcase that i use when i check gear for travel)
Mountainsmith Parallax photo backpack (on order)
Mountainsmith Correspondent roller case (carryon legal)(on order)




I cant take credit for this as i got a great deal of advice and help from Steven Frischling whose blog can be found here http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/ if you read his blog you will see just how much stuff he is able to pack into his bags its amazing

For my rig, I use the Akona camera bag. It has been able to fit two ports 4-5 diff lenses as well as two strobes and a dome. It is a GOOD bag.
For my gear/clothes I usually take an unassuming giant duffel that has bleach stains all over it.

For my last trip I bought a Seahorse SE920 roll-on, which was highly recommended by a poster on one of these forums. Got a great deal at Fuerte Cases (which is linked from the Seahorse site). It is lighter than the equivalent Pelican, and larger than either the Pelican or the Storm case. I was able to fit in my Subal housing without removing the large viewfinder. This thing just barely squeezes into the American Airlines size-checker for carry-on. Now the bad news: I had 6 legs on my flights. 5 of these were on Boeing 757 and 717 aircraft, and the Seahorse fit easily into the overhead compartment. One leg, however, was on a Boeing 763. The Seahorse would not fit into the overhead in the economy cabin. It was going to be checked (with my camera bodies, lenses, and laptop inside) until I discovered that it would fit into the overhead in the first class cabin. I was just lucky that my seat was close to first class (making it possible for me to go upstream to get there), that some of the the first class passengers were late (allowing me to sneak it into a compartment space that became an issue once the occupant of the seat below arrived), and that no airline personnel saw me pop it in there (and therefore did not suspect that it did not belong to a first class pax). Without these three lucky breaks it would have been taken away from me on the middle leg of an international flight (on my way TO the destination), and I could have ended up in a real pickle. I won't be using it again unless I can confirm that all legs my flights are on a 757.

Mr Kogia, wait till you get on the DASH we'll be taking... Not even the Airport Accelerator will fit. Oh and we get only 15kg allowance.
For international travel, the soft backpacks are tough to beat for size and disguise. Plus they see laptop and cameras and won't check it for fear of liability.

Here is a link to Eric's packing for hand carry:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22986

I now replaced my Pelican case with Rimowa Tropicana case
http://www.samys.com/index/page/product/pr...20+Liter+Volume

It is about 5kg lighter than my Pelican case and I can fit my Subal ND2 housing, 2 Ikelite DS125, all macro ports and dome ports, float arms, all chargers for my strobes, camera, and a small Hartenberger focus light. Total weight is about 20kg. It comes with dividers that you can cut up and arrange things however you like in a much smaller package than Pelican.
I am not sure which size I got but local store happened to have only one in stock and the size was right so I bought one

I'm still trying to find a camera backpack which is deep enough to hold a 8 inch dome port on it's edge - so far it seems like all backpacks are only 6.5 inches deep.

If anyone knows of a deeper one please post!

With weight restrictions and carry-on bag limits it is getting really hard to take a DSLR and UW housing on a dive travel trip. My solution is to put all of the expensive cameras, computers and lenses in my carry-on Pelican roller box and check the UW housing, ports, strobes, chargers, arms etc. in a hard box. Of course, the Pelican boxes are heavy so the box adds weight to the severly limited restriction of 50 pounds. I found an Underwater Kinetics "Load Out Case" that weighs a few pounds less but seems adequate for protecting the gear from baggage handlers.

This source shows specs for and carries Underwater Kinetics and Pelican Boxes:
http://www.opticsplanet.net/underwater-kin...-dry-boxes.html

The box is large enough for all the UW gear, but if I filled it full of gear and clothes it would weigh 70 pounds or more. So I seperate every piece of the housing, ports, brackets, arms, strobes, batteries, etc and wrap each one in bubble wrap. I fill any gaps with pieces of closed cell foam and foam rubber. I also use a zip lock bag for anything electronic (strobes, batteries) to protect them from the cold and condensation that may occur in a sub-freezing baggage compartment at high altitude. I've saved the bubble wrap from shipments I've recieved and use a rubber band to secure it rather than packing tape so I can reuse it. (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) When I get where I'm going I store the bubble wrap in any bag that's handy until the end of the trip, then rewrap for the return flight. By filling the box with bubble wrap and foam pieces, I manage to pad everything, fill the box solid with padding and keep the weight close to 50 pounds. It all weighed about 54 lbs on the last trip, including an Ikelite housing, an 8" dome port, a flat port and two DS-125 strobes. The ticket counter just waved it through because the average weight of our bags was under 50 lbs.

It's amazing how the baggage handlers always want to flip these hard-case roller bags over on their backs. I'm always glad for the extra padding.

My wife doesn't use a heavy UW camera, just a P&S in a plastic housing, so I share some of her luggage space for my dive gear and clothes. We check 4 bags which are carefully packed to meet the 50 lb limit and carry one bag each. If she had a DSLR in a housing we probably couldn't meet the weight restrictions. I could not meet them if I were travelling alone with this gear.

I have my D90, DS-125, 3 ports, tray and 2 ULCS arms in a 1600 Pelicase.
This goes in a Samsonite soft luggage and is topped up with clothes or so.
The only reason of the Samsonite lugage is to hide the Pelicase inside.
Camera, computer, cables, external Harddisks, etc, etc, travels carry-on
in a photo backpack with computer compartment.
But now i am in trouble because i bought a G11 with the Patima housing
and my "old" D-2000 strobe attached, all fits nice in a 1450 Pelicase but adds
space and about 20 pounds more of weight...
At least i have another complete dive gear at "home" in Italy, so i don't have to hassle
around transporting the dive gear too.
(and i wish i could afford to have a 2nd D90 rig there too....)

Chris

Just a short update as i packed and weighin both Pelicases for my trip home to Italy.

Pelicase 1600 weights 13.6 Kilos / 30.2 lbs containing:
Ikelite D90 Housing with 2 handle tray, 2 2x8'' ULCS arms, 1 Ikelite DS-125 strobe with charger, 6'' dome, 105mm and 18-105mm port

Pelicase 1450 weights 6.5 Kilos/14.33 lbs containing:
Patima G11 Housing with both ports, Inon D-2000 strobe, homemade SS tray and S&S flexarm, Inon UWL-100 WA Lens

Chris

Hy,

Week ago I picked up Pelican IM 2700 case!

I managed to put inside: Canon 7D, Aquatica A7D with handle tray, Tokina 10-17, Canon 100mm macro. 2x Inon LE550W, macro port + 2 ext. rings,2 x Inon Z240`s with cables, and there is space for ZEN 100mm!

Finally I got what i've been looking for though since i'm new figuring our the dividers is a bit of challenge for me and it will be even more when I start adding up to my rig.

Kata HB-207

Hello
I used to pack my things Explorer case 7630.B. It is filled with foam. Foam is pre cubed and its make easy to cut different size holes for all kind of equipment. This pre cubed is good but maybe bad in longer use terms, because this pre cubed foam, holes what You make, quite easily like to enlarge bigger when you several times remove layers. But time will show how this is working. Of course Explorer have also soft padded dividers, but first I liked to test this foam. This case arrived with 3 thick and 2 thin layers foam.
When I started to think what case and how big case I will need, I was very sure that over wight is certain when I like to take all photo equipments and diving gears also, then I choose bigger case and hoped to fit all to one case.
First of all I think to put in this case only photo equipments, but when I received case I understand that I must try to fit all things, because its not easy to take two bag what I give away and one what I take in plain. So I decided to fit all photo equipments and dive gears to this Explorer case and only few clothes and camera and lenses I take with me in plain.
This case is so deep, that I decided to hide smaller things inside several layers. First layer (thin layer foam) I hided housing handles. Second layer started to fit bigger and more sensitive parts. I hided all parts inside second, third and fourth layer (thick layer foam). On top I used second thin layer foam to cover most photo equipments and started to fit dive gears. And I was able to fit all things. Only what isn't in picture is my BCD. It just don't fit because I have ScubaPro T-Black. But soon I will receive my travel BCD ScubaPro Geo and then all things will be one case. And end of packing I use two Explorer case three number lock to be sure that no one can so easily open and see what is inside the case.
I don't know yet is this packing will work, but end of this year October I will go travel and test it.
This case weight now max 35 kg. +/- 2 kg when I receive new BCD. Most of my traveling its not a problem, because diver can take 20 + 12 kg free of charge and 8 kg carri in baggage. If using soft badded dividers weight might be even smaller. But this in future testing.


Only problem what I have no is insurance. Because here in Estonia no insurance company don't make such value case insurance. They have maximum amount only 2000 EUR-os and all things cost much more. One company made insurance offer and two weeks cost 291 EUR. I think its to much and I will try to find cheaper solution.


Here is few pictures to show what I did:
http://aixlands.planet.ee/Kast_koos/

Best Regards
Aigar

You might want to check with your airline and airport(s). I recall that there would be a 32 kg limit on any single luggage item irrespective of the overall allowances and extra charges...

Thanks this tip. If I change mu regulator and BCD, then I think in my case there is no problem. Total weigt then is something like 32 kg.

I know the think tank bags are pretty popular in genral for hauling set ups, but what is the concensous on mopuntainsmith boarding pass for transporting UW rig?

Something that I've been looking for in the "packing" category is how to keep dirt, dust & junk out of the inside surface of my dome port while it is broken down into pieces for transit, since it is a bit of a nuisance to clean the interior surface & Murphy prioritizes things that are hassles.

Ideally, there would be a low profile screw-in plug that would fill the hole. But barring that, does anyone have any suggestions specific for an 8" Ikelite dome?


-Hugh

I am cheap, I just keep mine inside a ziplock bag...

tape the port hole with lint free cloth on the inside.

Looking for an optimal soft-cover rigid case for check-in. To me the mid-sized Lightware cases are too shallow for housings & dome ports etc. (other models are way too big). Has anyone used the Versa-flex case? They have cases that are 8.5" deep, with much more size options than lightware...

I have tried many different methods of traveling with underwater dSLR gear and have found the best to be using the largest carry on suitcase the airlines allow with separators from another camera bag (packed tight). The obvious disadvantage is lack of protection with the soft bag but since I carry it with me there is no worry of baggage handlers. The other advantage is it has wheels.

greg