The title says it all. Steven Frisching, who really likes flying on commercial airlines¹ , has posted a very handy table that gives the dimensions and weight limits for economy class carry-on baggage for 68 of the worlds Airlines.

There is no standard size or weight for in cabin luggage. As a result the allowed weight varies from a low of 11lbs (5kg) on Alitalia to “none” (perhaps better stated as “none specified…”) on several domestic carriers. Adding to the chaos… some Airlines ignore their own regulations while others are know sticklers.

Icelandair is missing. So here, as of this date, are the specs:

IcelandAir: Size: total of the 3 dimensions (L+W+H) does not exceed 115cm (45in) – Weight 13lbs (5.9kg.)

As always, these may change so check with your airline before you head to the airport…

¹ And I don’t.

Iceland has found itself in the news for all the wrong reasons this past few months.

Iceland’s economic miracle turned out, like so many others of late, to be little more than hyper-leveraged fiction. While the boom times are over, Iceland remains a place of uncommon beauty and uncommon people.

So, as an antidote to the endless stream of cliched images of Icelanders waiting outside for the (pick one of three) failed Bank to open I offer a collection of (mostly) coastal Iceland landscapes.

This was my third trip to Iceland and I my first solo trip. Traveling alone allowed me to be nothing other than a photographer and traveler. It also meant that all the work of making and breaking camp, cooking meals and making decisions were all mine and mine alone.

So what worked and, inevitably, what did not work (at least to the extent that it is worth complaining about?)

There and Back

jetBlue / IcelandAir – jetBlue handled the direct round trip flight to Boston Logan and was kind enough to wave the (then) newly instated second bag fee. That won’t happen again… The red eye put me and my luggage in Boston 7 hours prior to IcelandAir finishing the trip. My IcelandAir flight was the first of the day so I was stuck with lots of luggage and little sleep until the IcelandAir ticket window opened 5 hours of so after I landed. I was beyond happy to get rid of my luggage.

Especially when compared to jetBlue, IcelandAir seems like a blast from the past. All women cabin crews in tailored uniforms and giant row filling stainless steal carts are the most obvious contrasts to jetBlue. Older 737’s with very little in the way of inflight distractions is another. The fact that they continue to serve meals also makes them a vanishing breed.

And in a final homage to times gone by, both the outbound and inbound Boston to Reykjavik flights were on time.

I will complain a bit about the schedule. IcelandAir hubs in Reykjavik and the flight is timed to land in Europe in the early morning. That is fine if, as most of the people on the plane were, you are headed for Europe. If you jump of in Iceland you wander up to the rental car counter after midnight still facing a 45 minute drive from the Airport into the big city.

Thanks largely to the German cartographer at ourfootprints and my trusty Garmin Nuvi, I drove directly to my favorite place to stay in Reykjavik, GuestHouse Anna. Anna’s is located near the transportation terminal should you take the airport bus into Reykavik. It is also an easy and welcomed walk from Anna’s to the Reykjavik city center. Anna’s is a nice and fairly priced place and she is a gracious and properly eccentric host.

The first batch of hand-made images from my most recent trip to Iceland are up over at WilliamSmitheyJr.com.

More to follow…

Enjoy.

Long ago I found the commercially available camera backpacks to be over-engineered, too heavy and too costly. Sure, encased in pounds of high density foam, your equipment would likely survive a drop of 30 feet. But, I asked myself, how often is this an issue?

My 4×5 equipment lives in a Dana (RIP), front loading Pack with the camera and lenses all safe in Gnass Gear (RIP?) cases. The pack is made for backpacking and other backcountry uses and easily carries 35-40 pounds. The camera infrastructure, the pack and the dedicated bags, weigh just 6 pounds (contrast this to the roughly equivalent Lowepro Photo Trekker which is nearly twice as heavy.) I figure it’s good for no more than a twelve foot drop. No, I’m not going to test it.

As I collected digital camera gear my first impulse was to go the build-it-yourself route. Once again, I needed a pack that was designed to carry well and was a front or panel loader. These are scarce and the ones that are available all had the same flaw – the front “rainbow” zipper stopped far short of the bottom of the pack

As Mark Dubovoy discovered and writes about over at Luminous Landscape the folks at RPT have a nice solution for large format types. The combine a modified Kelty Redwing Pack and custom lens cases into a decent carrying, lightweight system. And, to their everlasting credit, they modify the Redwing Pack so that the front panel zipper extends from the floor of the pack. But the system is intended for large format use…

So I bought one intent on making it work for DSLR cameras and lenses. A visit to the local Real Camera Store ™ solved the problem. Pelican makes a padded divider that fits perfectly and they had one in the back. No I don’t have the model number. Here is the link to the Pelican Case Accessories Page - it’s there somewhere.

The RPT Modified Redwing Pack with the Pelican Case padded divider weigh very little, provide plenty of protection for gear and look like this:

But, this nice carrying, light weight combo is too large for international carry on.

So I fly with a Lowepro All Weather Mini Trekker , which is internationally flyable. The RPT/Pelican Pack collapses well and is packed inside one of my two rolling duffels. I’m 6′2″ and the Mini Trekker is simply unwearable in the field. The pack is too small in every way but in particular, the waist belt is useless and your shoulders take the entire load.

Note how much longer the torso is on the RPT Kelty pack (left.) Also, it is nicely adjustable and has a real, “glad to help with the load,” padded, adjustable waist belt. The dog is Zach and really wanted to be part of this picture. So he is.