You usually learn this the hard way and it still happens to me these days in my camera bag. You pull out your gear to shoot a photo or film a clip and the batteries are flat! Using Vivitar flashes they are pretty easy to turn them selves on inside of your bag along with cameras like the VX2100 and the HPX’s etc…

With the cameras I don’t keep my battery plugged into the camera, it’s stored seperately to stop this issue and with the flash batteries I just keep spares at all times because changing them out at each spot would be to much to do in my opinion especially if the rider is ready to roll already.

Whilst packing for my trip to China at the moment I wanted to make sure I had no issues with batteries going flat whilst in transport and if your like me your flashes are going to be wrapped up in clothes in your carry -on luggage so it would be pretty easy for them to turn on and go flat over the course of a 12 hour flight. So the easy way around this is to keep  a battery out of each flash/trigger so that they can’t turn on but keeping the rest in there helps with storage because stashing 20-30 batteries can be annoying also.

I know this is a pretty simple tip but it’s something that is probably over looked by some people so I hope it helps.

Chris Conway sent through this shot of Hayden Reid doing a large Turndown air at Wadalba Skatepark NSW.