Am I reading the newest travel posting from the United States FAA correctly to mean that pros won't be able to travel with backup batteries?! It seems like the gram equivalent of one in the camera and one spare would exceed the maximum allowance no?
thanks Forrest...sorry about that, I did a search for FAA Battery but nothing had come up... and it looks like I greatly overestimated the gram equivalent of the newer canon 1Ds battery so the ban doesn't effect me...My husband shoots DV and we will see an effect on packing for long productions.
Also, it's not the FAA but the TSA. FAA is primarily concerned with aviation, TSA is primarily concerned with shoving pointy sticks up the bums of us frequent travelers.
The new ban isn't going to affect most people...it's really going to come down on photographers who travel with battery-powered strobe packs. I'm glad that my Hensel Porty and Quantum Turbo-style batteries are sealed lead acid, rather than lithium, though I don't expect the minimum wage TSA screeners to note the difference.
shatterkiss wrote:
Also, it's not the FAA but the TSA. FAA is primarily concerned with aviation, TSA is primarily concerned with shoving pointy sticks up the bums of us frequent travelers.
Oh? I thought the bulletin was issued by the Department of Transportation, the department of which the FAA is an agency. And that TSA was an agency under Home Land Security.
From what I have read, it is a safety issue, not a security issue. There have been fires in checked luggage caused by Li Ion batteries.
rlharris wrote:
Oh? I thought the bulletin was issued by the Department of Transportation, the department of which the FAA is an agency. And that TSA was an agency under Home Land Security.
From what I have read, it is a safety issue, not a security issue. There have been fires in checked luggage caused by Li Ion batteries.
Doesn't matter who issued the rule ... chances are it will be someone wearing a TSA patch telling you what you may or may not take on board. Just another hoop to jump through.
The idiocy of the Federal government continues to exceed everyone's wildest guesses.
Here's a little tale to illustrate this fact.
I have a very good friend who is a member of a federal law enforcement agency. He and a couple of other officers were traveling to a location. They carry on their service weapons. One member of the team is carrying on a fully automatic weapon.
At the "security checkpoint" one of the officers is carrying a coffee and is told that he has to dump it out. When he asked why, the TSA guy told the officer that it is possible that a razor blade could be concealed at the bottom of the cup. The officer asked the TSA guy why he would hide a razor blade when he has a full auto weapon and his service weapon in his carry-on bag. The TSA guy said, "yeah, but you can't have a razor blade on the plane."
I hope there is some substantial clarification of these idiotic rules soon.
Batteries are still allowed. It's only LOOSE Lithium batteries that aren't allowed in checked bags. HOWEVER, they are allowed in checked baggage as long as they're in an electronic device, ziplocked, capped OR in original packaging. You can still bring them as carryon and it's only the large laptop batteries that are limited to 2 extra batteries for carryon. You can still have smaller lithium camera batteries as carryon.
And... it was issued neither by the FAA or the TSA but the Department of Transportation. TSA is helping DoT to enforce the rule.
The limit is 25 grams total and single battery cannot exceed 8 grams or equivalent to 100 watt hour battery (laptop capacity), AND no more than 2 spare batteries regardless of their capacity.
Makes sense in terms of laptops, but no sense in terms of camera batteries. My Lenovo laptop has a 47.5 Watt battery well under the 100 Watt limit, and I can take two spares for a total of 142.5 Watts (still well under max allowed of 300 Watts. If I take a camera I can take two D3 spares for a total of 55 Watts.
3 options
1) give a couple spares to another passenger
2) take 10 cameras as there is only the 300 Watt limit for internal batteries
3) take a Quantum camera battery pack with 200 Watt capacity and a camera adapter cable
I never check baggage that I will need at my final destination. Over 1 million bags went astray from last FCC figures, and thieves have a field day with unlocked bags as with the ring operating out of New Orleans that was caught and the one out of Miami that has not been caught. So for me options 1 and 3 will be the best course to take.
Also a good reason to get the vertical grip/battery pack for cameras like the 5D and the D300 so an extra battery can be carried on board. With the D300 one can take two batteries on board inside the "camera" and another two spares (and three can be high capacity EN_EL4a batteries for the D3). Take two D300 cameras and one could take a total of 6 batteries (2 EN-EL3e and 4 EN-EL4a) on board and have a total of 133 Watts of power.
In light of the new regulations someone concerned about recharging overseas would do well to get a D300 and the battery pack and 3 of the ENN-EL4a batteries.
Actually the battery pack is a "device" as well so if carried on board, but separated from the camera, one could take a D300 and up to 10 grips/battery packs and meet the 300 Watt limit set by the feds. An expensive option but workable. Even two D300's with grips with the two EN-EL4a spares would provide for 121 Watts leaving room for a laptop and still easily being within the 300 Watt limit.
The D300 battery packs would even make sense for D3 users as they can carry two D3's on board along with two spare batteries, a laptop, and up to to 7 of the D300 battery grips (in theory) and be within the limit. I doubt very much that a photographer with two D3's, two D300 battery packs with internal batteries, and two external batteries, would have a problem at a TSA checkpoint.
The other rather glaring loophole in the security procedures is that if one placed two spares in a 1st piece of luggage, and a second in a 3rd piece of baggage, and a 4th in a coat pocket for a jacket being scanned, most security people are not going to make a total count of all the pieces being scanned to associate them with one traveler.
I can see a market for counterfeit NiMh battery labels to place over the lithium ion battery stickers. Where there is a will there is a way. September 11, 2001 showed how $1 box cutters could easily overwhelm a multi-trillion dollar national defense system. Or at least that's the official story.
Some good info here - a lot of this is getting repeated in blogs and such. For fellow Canonites, in case you are curious, I put together a chart that shows the current bod lineup, the corresponding battery type, and the total lithium content, along with some tangential information, much of which has already been addressed here, plus a little more technical info for the techno-geeks!
