Packing the dive rig

wolfbane wrote:

Hello Craig,

Amazed nobody seems to have responded. Have never tried underwater photography so it is educative to see what one might have to tote.

There's not a lot of traffic here.  I was posting in a thread on Wetpixel about packing this sort of gear and made a web page to show my story.  Since I had it up anyway I thought I'd post here.

How much does all that gear weigh? It must be a relief to get into the water and let it take some of the strain.

The assembled rig set up for macro weighed in at 31 pounds I think.  I never weighed it with the dome port, but it must be heavier.   It is quite a hassle to deal with.

I also cannot fit it all in a single bag, though perhaps I might come close in a backpack.  The roller bag I use loses a lot of space to the wheels and handle.  I basically can fit the dome port and the housing in my roller bag, and that's it for the big pieces.  Even then I have to partially disassemble the rig to make it short enough to fit.  I have to put some in a waist bag and the rest in a suitcase.  And since I travel with my own dive gear, that suitcase is full of dive gear anyway.  I use a second smaller suitcase for my clothes, toiletries and laptop.   Which means I have three roller bags - and two hands to pull them.  So at airports I strap one bag to another to get down to two rollers and a waist bag.

And I only have two lenses to carry/use.

Looking at your output, the investment was well made, Alistair.

Thanks.  I work at this.  It's gotten to be the only type of photography I'm really interested in doing.