[LargeFormat] Luggage

[philip lambert]

If you identify the expensive items in your outfit and carry those on board
with you then you are likely to arrive with these still in your possession.
Take the lenses off the boards, put them in a small Lowepro backpack with
your meter and walk onboard.  The heavy/bulky items can go in the hold.  In
the UK at least, old monorails and big tripods go cheap so a baggage thief
might ignore them.
I use a different technique when holidaying in Naples and such dubious
places.  I use an old Nikon F3 with the word Nikon covered in black
electricians' tape (I guess I mean electricians of all colours but the tape
is black) and I take just one zoom lens and a rising front 35pc lens in a
Lowepro Minimag bag about the same age..  I tried this a year or two ago and
got some excellent results.      If I were fitter I would carry my old Sinar
in its cloth briefcase with the lenses in an old partitioned shoulder bag.
The lenses are all on Century Graphic boards and the Sinar has a lensboard
adapter of plywood cut to accept these boards.  I use a Calumet rollfilm
adapter instead of dds. If you make your own boards and adapter  you could
standardise on a lensboard rather bigger than the Century which would suit
big lenses/shutters better.
Incidentally it looks to me as though a Calumet 10 on 120 56x72mm rfb might
be adapted to take five on 120 56x 150mm.   It would mean cutting a bigger
aperture and modifying the frame counter or winding on twice.  I know there
are wide-format rfbs around but they must be collectors' items to judge from
the daft prices asked.
Anybody tried this?
Philip