EM-5 Nauticam Travel Rigs

[NautilusCairns]

I am in the process of shifting to a Nauticam housing for my recently purchased EM-5 after a couple of years with a Canon S95/Recsea rig. I would appreciate any suggestions on keeping the weight down for travel. I was thinking of utilising the mounting on the housing for one strobe and just using a single handle tray for the other. I have two Inon S2000 strobes and a focus light.

Any ideas from your own experience?

 

[Audsred]

I have a very similar configuration - I use the mounting on the housing for a strobe/one handle tray. Also when I travel - I remove the orings and port and then put the camera (w/o lens inside). I have a well padded back-pack that I carry my camera, housing, ports, lens, strobes, focus light, tray and arms as well as a small laptop and kindle. That way I can carry it on the plane and make sure it doesn't get damaged or lost.

 

[NautilusCairns]

I have a very similar configuration - I use the mounting on the housing for a strobe/one handle tray. Also when I travel - I remove the orings and port and then put the camera (w/o lens inside). I have a well padded back-pack that I carry my camera, housing, ports, lens, strobes, focus light, tray and arms as well as a small laptop and kindle. That way I can carry it on the plane and make sure it doesn't get damaged or lost.

Thanks Audsred. I will try that. I travelled with my previous rig in a back pack as well. Although I used to put the tray and arms in my checked bag and put my reg in the back pack. It was a pretty compact (excuse the pun) outfit.

Do you use the Nauticam one handle tray or something else?

With the recsea I had a friend make a tray for me so I could place the handles close to the housing and operate all the controls with my fingers and still hold the handles. I don't think the size of the NA Em_5 housing will allow that, plus there are more controls to play with.

 

[Audsred]

I have the Nauticam flexi-tray - have both handles but I like the one handle config best as I can get to the controls much better with only the one handle. I use the mount on the housing for one strobe and the top mount on the housing to attach the focus light.

 

[Guitarfish64]

I have the flexitray with one handle on the left side and just one strobe.
For my second trip with the E-M5 I added the soft handstrap for the right hand. I found it to be a big ergonomic improvement for virtually no weight, that allows me hold the camera right-handed for most of the dive with minimal effort.

I travel with the 12-50 lens and gears already mounted on the camera in a soft optech pouch. Most airlines allow you 1 piece of hand-luggage plus a small camera and that set up is fairly small but weighs in at about 1.2Kg. There is a theoretical 7Kg limit with Virgin Aus, although they've never actually checked. If they did, my handluggage (inc dive-computer, focus light and iPad) comes just under without the assembled camera

 

[Foxtrot16]

Here is a photo of my set up in my camera bag; however, I now use a different tray / arm set up which requires it to be packed in my luggage.

My set up is the EM-5 in the Nauticam housing with the 12 - 50mm & 60mm macro lenses, twin S&S YS110A strobes, loc-line arms, flip dioptre & +3 wet lens, GoPro, focus light and two small plastic containers with spare parts in one and cleaning kit in the other.

Also attached a photo of my current set up to show the tray / arms I have - these could be broken down and packed into the bag as well but I am lazy - but everything gets packed into the camera bag bar the tray / arms.

Hope this helps.

Karl

 

[NautilusCairns]

Thanks all for giving me some good ideas for travelling.

I could put my Canon compact set up plus my regulator in a back pack which then weighed spot on 7kg.

Guitarfish64. Which handstrap are you using?

 

[orenbvip]

Get the porter 46 bag it will fit everything. My setup fits with MacBook Air and a reg set and dive computer, mask, and a pair of underwear (just incase) and micro fibre towel.

The rest goes in check luggage:

 

[ksporry]

Very useful thread. I been wondering about this. At the moment I have a benbo camera backpack. Mac size for cabin luggage. I filed it with the canner plus housing separated in the bag, 2 strobes, the arms (including buoyant arms) the joints, the handle bars, all batteries, a gopro, some chargers (but not all), ipad, laptop, spare parts and documents. My teg u carry in a separate bag. Since that looks like a laptop bag and most airliners allow a separate laptop bag, that doesn't get commented on. The backpack is really big and won't fit in the overhead locker of a regional turbo prop. The whole bag weighs about 15kg. I don't want that as I am bound to get scrutinised.
So what do people recommend you check in and what should go as hand luggage? I guess the biggest concern is size not weight.
Also I understand the benefits of putting the camera in the housing, but why remove the o ring? Is that for air pressure reasons?

 

[PHIL RUDIN]

I use a ThinkTank airport roll-on bag and a ThinkTank shoulder bag that will slide over the handle on the roller board bag. Both will fit in the overhead compartment and I have carried as many as two NA-EM5 housings and a Nauticam compact housing with domes up to 170mm, four Inon Z-240 strobes, and all camera and lenses as well as my ring-flash and much more. I put trays and strobe arms into checked baggage because they seem to peek the interest of the TSA more than the other stuff does.

Phil Rudin