Photography with long lenses is a heavy business. As usual, for our recent trip to Kenya we brought with us; four bodies, an F4 600mm, an F4 500mm, a variety of other lenses, two pairs of binoculars, a GPS receiver, chargers, ipods, back-up storage devices ... oh yes and some clothes!
The allowance for internal flights in Kenya is 15kg each. We put some kit into the pockets of our excellent Domke photovests and tried to look casual (and not guilty) as we put our bags onto the scales .... 75kg in total ... 45kg excess baggage! For reference, the airport guys weigh everything, including your hand luggage. Our main concern was to get the bags on the plane. Thankfully they accepted our bags and we had to pay excess baggage for the flight to the camp and back two weeks later.
Total charge 9,000 KSH ... or £50! The cost is not the issue, but the worry is that the plane will be overloaded and they refuse one or more of our bags.
If anyone has any smart ideas how to get round this problem, let us know.
Julie and Adam
Internal flights and weight allowances - 21 October 2007
