In a message dated 9/26/2001 Stephen Troy writes:
<< It appears that President Bush is going to recommend the banning of
all
carry-on items for US flights in his upcoming visit to Chicago. I, for
one, am not thrilled about the possibility of having my camera equipment
travelling in the belly of the airplane, being manhandled by airport
luggage handlers, etc. - assuming once they left my sight that I'd ever
see
my OM-4's again. And, of course, what about film? If you can't carry
film
on the plane, you won't be able to take it with you at all (you
certainly
don't want to put it in your checked luggage). >>
They first started talking about banned carryon a week or so back yet on
the news you would see the usual items being acrried to the gates. I
cringed at the thought of this when I first heard of it (then again,
right now I cringe at the thought of flying too). Having just traveled
from San Jose CA to upstate NY and back specifically to shoot this
really hit home.
For film they will no doubt continue to do hand checks and you'll always
be able to carryon something the size of a diaper bag or purse so I'm
not too worried about film. On the subject of film, they had some kind
of a sensatized pad they layed against the ziplock bag my film was in
that then went into some kind of bomb detecting box the size of an old
large microwave oven. The pad had to process in there a while and after
about a minute or so they said I could be on my way. Not sure how that
worked...the pad had no physical contact with the film and the film did
not go into any detectors. At both checkpoints (San Jose and Buffalo NY)
they tried to give me the usual, "don't worry if below 1000ISO" spiel
they always give. I simply said, "professional film (and it was) for
professional use, please hand check" and they graciously did so. I make
it as easy as possible by carrying all my film in a gallon size ziplock
bag. In NY the security guard even expressed concern that I may have
left film in one of my cameras as my bag went through the X-Ray
machine...I assured her I wouldn't do that and thanked her for her
concern.
As far as camera gear, at an event last year I was talking with a
photographer who had all his gear checked in heavy cases and lost a
couple items, including a $10k Nikkor (400f2.8 AF I believe is what he
said it was) and the airline never recovered the items. He was renting
gear for the event I met him at. I'm really not fond of the thought of
checking my gear. My Lowepro Mini-Trekker is the perfect carryon size
(for the trip to NY I had both the Mini-Trekker and my old Magnum35 bags
actually....spares and lots of flash stuff came along). What kinds of
cases would both protect the equipment and yet not draw attention of
airport thieves? Big alluminum cases that scream "expensive equipment
inside--steal me" are not what I consider an option.
I could care less if I had to arrive 3 hours early and have my entire
camera bag torn apart on a hand check...I would prefer that to checking
my gear. What is the norm??? How will we travel with large amounts of
equipment from now on? Do you forgo taking your own gear and arrange
rental equipment at the shooting destination?
Mike Veglia
Motor Sport Visions Photography
http://www.motorsportvisions.com
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