Question Assembled camera transport

[wizbangdoodle]

My wife is the photographer, but I'm trying to find a solution for her. Actually for me, because I'm usually the one carrying the camera to the boat.

Our normal routine while on vacation is to get the camera all assembled and ready to put into the water. This includes strobes and arms, dome lens, viewfinder and of course the base plate. We then walk from our condo to the dock, get on the boat. Short walk and usually not an issue.

We are planning a trip to Tahiti in November and will be on a small, boutique cruise ship. The plan will remain to assemble the camera before we leave our room, but there is going to be much more travel between the cruise ship and dive site. I'm assuming it will be a walk or tender from the cruise ship to a van/shuttle to the dive boat. Needless to say, I'm wanting to protect the camera as much as possible. The wife suggested a Yeti cooler bag. The 2 problems I see with that are #1, it's bloody expensive and #2, it looks like it may not be big enough.

Anyone have suggestions on how to protect the camera for these short trips? What have you used that works?

 

[TostitoBandito]

Check out cinebags square grouper bags. I use their larger teal bag for my Canon R5 rig on every trip. It's great for hauling heavy gear from place to place, perfect for holding and protecting your camera while on the dive boat, and it can double as a rinse tank after if you fill it up with water. Plus lots of pockets for defog, phones, sunscreen, glasses, etc... For travel it folds up into a flat rectangular mass that's easy enough to throw in one of the checked pieces of dive gear luggage. I've heard of some people carrying these on planes with their rigs fully assembled, but I wouldn't recommend that.

Cinebag CB80 Square Grouper XL 3.0

The Cinebag CB80 Square Grouper XL 3.0 is the perfect travel bag. It not only fits large underwater camera rigs but also serves as your personal rinsing tank.

www.bluewaterphotostore.com

They aren't cheap but when you're talking about a $10K+ camera setup it's a drop in the bucket. The one I linked is the larger one, big enough for full size SLR or mirrorless rigs even with dome ports and big strobes. It fits my Ikelite housed R5, 8" dome, and 2x DS230 strobes all setup and ready to go. The smaller grey bag would be better for smaller rigs like crop bodies or single strobe setups.

Edit: looks like some of these may be discontinued, but they're still in stock at some places (see above) and probably on ebay.

 

[MidOH]

........if only we had a suitcase or carryon sized box, with wheels, and extended handle, in our cruise ships room.

 

[tursiops]

ANY cooler bag will work; it doesn't need to be YETI or even made for cameras. Mine is from Costco.
You will need to loosen any strobe/light arms and fold everything in on itself to reduce the overall size.

 

[bvanant]

Ours is like this one.

Bill

 

[tursiops]

Ours is like this one.

Bill

no image; can't link Amazon. Have to show the pix

 

[TostitoBandito]

Yeah definitely +1 if you can find a cooler bag with the proper dimensions for your rig. You can definitely save money that way, especially if you have time to try some out. I went with the cinebag one because I was in somewhat of a hurry at the time and it was a purpose-built solution (one of the only ones I could find). But yeah, it's essentially an overbuilt cooler bag with some other features.

The keys in my mind are:

• Proper size (so your largest rig snugly fits inside with arms folded up)
• Some degree of padding/insulation to protect the rig from banging around on a boat
• Shoulder strap with sturdy connectors/hardware since it could be 20+ lb easily and dropping a camera is much worse than dropping a cooler full of beer
• Easy to rinse and will handle constantly being wet with saltwater ok without degrading
• Can compact down for travel/packing
• Pockets are a nice to have bonus

 

[wizbangdoodle]

Very good suggestions everyone. Now it's time to look at sizes and see what works.