Hi,
When I travel for long periods of time I put my equipment in a Pelican
1550 case and padlock it. I have a chain that I can use to attach it
to something solid, or to the roofrack of a bus or whatever.
When I'm using the equipment I try to minimise the amount I carry,
especially if I'm going into crowds, so I will shoot with 3 cameras
and 3 lenses, and I won't carry a bag or anything else - this is just
temptation for pickpockets (as is one of those horrible photovests).
Spare film will go in a belt pouch and I have a film drop on my belt for
the used film. Cash and other bits and pieces go in my jeans pockets
rather than into a stealable wallet. This reduces to a minimum the
number of things I have to watch out for.
I've had several attempted muggings made on me, but only in Addis
Ababa for some reason, and they were all easy to scare away. But
that's just 14 people out of a population of millions. Metal
cameras are useful as weapons.
When I went to Romania last year I bought a Pacsafe
(http://www.pac-safe.com/) with the intention of putting my LowePro
backpack in it while I slept in trains or walked through the supposedly
thief-ridden streets of Bucharest. However, I found the Romanian people
(apart from one scumbag taxi-driver and his brother) to be invariably
friendly and hospitable, I couldn't sleep on the trains anyway, and I
never used the Pacsafe.
If you're going travelling I'd say the greatest risk comes not from
local people but from fellow-travellers, many of whom are highly
suspect and take advantage of 'road friendships'. If your 1st contact
with local people is one of distrust you & they won't enjoy it as much
as if you went into it in a spirit of openness and trust.
Take normal, sensible precautions; find out when you're there where the
no-go areas are, and take suitable precautions. For instance, the Mercato
area in Addis is notorious and I would only go there accompanied by a savvy
and trustworthy local. It often helps to scout out an area first without any
expensive equipment of any sort, that way you can get a feel for the
place and make a proper assessment of what is or isn't safe to carry.
Make sure you're fully insured, and don't let paranoia ruin your trip.
---
Bob
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Saturday, July 21, 2001, 12:51:35 AM, you wrote:
> Oops, sorry about that. Think I pressed <Enter>
> instead of <Shift> and somehow the message decided to
> be sent.
> I was wondering what you guys do to protect expensive
> Pentax (and cringe...other brands) camera gear while
> travelling. I mean, here in New Zealand, you could
> wander around with 10 of the latest high-tech bodies
> around your neck, and still have 10 bodies when you
> got home. Or you could leave one on the ground and
> either 5 people would come running after you to return
> it, or it would still be there when you went back 2
> hours later. But I realise most countries aren't like
> this.
> Do people try and cut the straps of your camera-bag? I
> have heard of this happening with hand-bags. And what
> if you just put it in a normal bag? How do you get it
> out to take a photo without attracting attention? Or
> do you just not take photos?
> Jody.
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