Flying with DSLR camera and lens

I am flying out on Friday morning and was wonder if I will have any problems with my camera. I have my 7D and three lens (50mmF1.8 STM, 55-250 F4-5.6 STM and Sigma 17-50MM F2.8. They will be all in my carry on bag.All are well padded. Has anyone had problems with TSA security lines? I will be flying out of Latrobe, Pa into Orlando, FL on Spirit airlines. I have been "googling" it and have the cover taped on the spare battery and the on and off switch taped off on the body. No lens will be attached to the body. I do not have a separate camera back due to Spirit's fees.

I've had no problems with air travel, I usually have no lenses mounted on bodies but it's a pain to pull the MBP out and separated from the bag. They usually give it a good look over and try to act important.

butcherman wrote in post #18869415
I am flying out on Friday morning and was wonder if I will have any problems with my camera. I have my 7D and three lens (50mmF1.8 STM, 55-250 F4-5.6 STM and Sigma 17-50MM F2.8. They will be all in my carry on bag.All are well padded. Has anyone had problems with TSA security lines? I will be flying out of Latrobe, Pa into Orlando, FL on Spirit airlines. I have been "googling" it and have the cover taped on the spare battery and the on and off switch taped off on the body. No lens will be attached to the body. I do not have a separate camera back due to Spirit's fees.

Are you restricted to only one carry on bag?

There should be no issues. On rare occasions, the TSA will consider a DSLR a "piece of electronics larger than a cell phone" and ask that it be placed in a bin like other large electronics. It depends on the agent. Just do what they ask and you'll get through with minimal time and trouble.

If Spirit does take your carry-on to place it in the cargo hold, you should remove the batteries.

Nick5 wrote in post #18869421
Are you restricted to only one carry on bag?

No your not but it cost $30 for carry on and I am retired on fixed income. I am using what they consider a personal bag which is free and will fit under the seat. It will have just my camera gear and my many medications.

I’ve flown 6 times to Seattle the last couple years,I was asked to take my camera out of my backpack one time at TSA..should be fine

I just got back from a trip to Europe from the US. I had my EOS R and three lenses (24-70L, 50L, and 70-300L) along with extra batteries and misc stuff. All in a backpack and did not have any issues. I was never asked to pull anything out. Just put the backpack in a bin to be scanned. I did have to pull out my tablet in Milan when flying back.

We've flown across North America and Europe over thirty times with no issues. The only time I was asked to remove the camera from the bag for separate screening was in France. As others have said, just put the camera bag in the bin for screening and pick it up on the other side. No worries.

Doesn't Spirit only consider a carry-on to be a small backpack sized item that you can stick under the seat in front of you? You may want you check on Spirit's policy.

That being said, you should have no issues with TSA. I just flew last night with an 85mm refractor telescope and they didn't even blink at it. And that looks a lot more unusual and perhaps ominous to the untrained eye than a camera and lens.

I fly for work a few times every year. Typically 20 flights or so. I usually bring a camera, a few lenses, maybe a flash.
I've started packing the larger pieces of camera stuff in fabric bags inside my carry on. At security, I remove the fabric bags and put them in the tray, together with the computer.
Occasionally, before I made this my routine, I was asked to remove the camera. Occasionally, after doing this all the time, I get thanked by security staff for making their life easier. If it makes any difference, it renders a positive attitude towards you, from the staff.
Having these items already in fabric bags also makes it easy to carry them onboard separately, when you run into the situations where they have to force some passengers to surrender their carry on at the gate or plane door, due to space restrictions inside the cabin.

I fly international quite a bit. TSA is not bad at all, I don't even remember them ever checking out a camera.

The most exhaustive (but very polite) search I had (a number of times) was Greece, where they insisted to check all lenses with both covers off! Once satisfied that the could see through the lenses, they were happy.

I have a nice carry on that allows be to have a laptop and camera gear. TSA says you need to place any device with a battery on a tray. In Atlanta, I hadn't thought about the flash, and my bag was flagged. The TSA agent knew what part of the bag to look, and I saw him take out the flash and swab it (I realized it was a device with batteries that I should have taken out). So on my return flight, I made sure my laptop, Kindle, DSLR, and flash were in the trays: didn't have any issues then. There's no issues leaving lenses in the bag.

I've flown several times across the Europe and Us/Asia and never had any issue. I just put my camera bag with three lenses in a separate bin along tablet and phone.

I fly fairly often, mostly US to Europe, with changing planes in European airport where sometimes it is necessary to go through the security screening again. The camera and the lenses are packed into a bottom of a camera bag, the top of which is filled with personal stuff. very seldom, and only in European airports have I been asked to pull the camera from the bag.

I have only ever been asked at Heathrow to have my cameras inspected (both trips through there - they were extremely courteous!)

Never had any interest shown in them flying through North American airports.