Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
In a previous blog post, I mentioned I was embarking on a Pelican 1550 repair project. I was looking to buy one, but someone offered the case for free, and I thought it was worth trying to refurbishment.
At worst, I could buy a new case later, and it would cost me nothing other than my time on the refurb. At best, I’d save a couple of hundred dollars on a new case and help recycle something that might have otherwise found its way to the dumps.
Pelican cases are a good choice for protecting your pricey gear while flying. But one such case recently caused a series of unpleasant situations for photographer Antonio Kuilan. The airport security stopped him three times at Houston Airport, and all three times he raised suspicion because of the Pelican case in which he carried his gear. We spoke to Antonio about this case to hear more, and we learned that he wasn’t the only one who had this experience.
When you pack your gear, you know how important it is to organize it properly. Spartan Cases has launched MDX Lid Organizer, which help you use that wasted lid space in your Pelican 1510 or 1535 case. It’s a convenient way to organize your gear, keep it protected while using up the storage space to the max.
There’s no two ways around it, Pelican cases are expensive. But, there’s a reason for their cost. They have the reputation of being the toughest cases out there. Many users trust them to hold thousands of dollars worth of equipment. But just how tough are they, really?
That’s what the folks at B&H wanted to find out. So, in this video, they put one the new Pelican Air Cases through its paces. They threw it off a roof, banged it against a tree, and even set fire to it. It took a hammer to even make a crack in the thing. But, even after that, it still managed to take a lot more abuse.
If a Pelican hard case has been on your shopping list, this post-Christmas sale we spotted on Amazon might just be for you. Three of their popular cases are currently available on eBay at very substantial discounts. With almost half knocked off the price on some combinations, depending on whether you want foam or padded dividers, they’re an absolute steal.
Rugged cases like Pelicans are great at protecting your gear. They’re waterproof, climate proof, indestructible and makes a great apple box when you need to sit or stand on something. After having more camera equipment than I am willing to carry on my shoulders, I bought a Pelican 1560 with padded dividers to carry it all.
The way the cases are structured, it is very difficult to put anything large inside, like reflectors or umbrellas into the case, and it is also very space consuming / uneconomical to put things like clamps and power cables and grip equipment inside the case, and almost always stupid to put water bottles inside the watertight case.
Previously we have featured friend of DIYP Paul Adshead (@PaulAdshead) when he had the clever idea to hack an $6 IKEA storage box into a laptop hood. Now he’s back again with another cool modification which turns a Peli case into a tether station with a $2 bicycle quick release bolt.
This is what Paul had to say:
When it comes to carrying gear in a safe manner, Pelican earned quite a name for themselves. They earned the name of being the safest, sturdiest, toughest case in the market. Sadly they have also earned the name of the most cumbersome, bang-your-knees, hard-to-carry bags in the market. At least with the 1510 unit.
Photographer Mate Kiss came up with a pretty clever way to convert any Pelican into a backpack for almost no cost at all.
Photographer Tom Barnes shoot on location quite a bit. While he started like most of us using his eye glued to the viewfinder followed by a quick look at the LCD, he has now moved to tethered shooting almost exclusively. And while shooting tethered in the studio is a somewhat familiar and safe territory, shooting tethered on location can prove quite problematic:
When shooting tethered in and outside of the studio it was always a bit of a nightmare, you’d have loose cables, chargers and no stand or case to keep your laptop separate from the ground/surface so if somebody spilt a drink for example it would drown your computer/drives/cables etc.
To solve all the problems and to avoid the accidental spill, Tom build an on-location tethered station that is a hybrid between a Peli case and Optimus Prime.
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