AIPO Dry Box

I am now officially back online. After a lot of blood sweat and even some tears, we have internet in our home (and thus my office). So, I hope to get back up to speed and be a little more regular in blogging again. Please forgive the decreased number of entries. It has been many days of trips to Starbucks just to check email. Our new setup should prove a little more convenient.

A few people have emailed me in the past about how to take care of your photo gear in a wet, damp tropical region. Until now, I had no real answer as it was not a real concern of mine. When you travel and shoot for two weeks in Indonesia it isn’t really a big deal. You stay in hotels that are air conditioned and thus dry. But living in Penang, the weather is warm and very humid (around 85% today) and no one lives with the AC on all the time. Not sure why, it must be too costly, so we don’t do it either. So what to do now about a lot of costly camera gear in a place that is a mildew nightmare? Enter AIPO Dry Boxes. (no website for these folks. Go figure!)

This is a Taiwanese company that, until last week, I had never heard of. I dropped into my friendly local camera shop “Click n Snap” and asked them the same question I just asked you. Salesman Matthew Chuah pulls out a Dry Box. It is a really slick looking cabinet, all black enameled and glass. It is basically a thermidor for your camera and electronic equipment. Quite frankly, it is a pretty simple box in one way but rather complicated in another. So rather than sit here and try to write all the theory on how it manages temperature and humidity, I will pass on a nice review I found that does a much better job at explaining how this little black box works. You can access the sales description/review HERE. at Sha Shin Ki I took home the AIPO Dry Box AP-68EX. It is 15″X15″ square and 20″ tall. I bought mine for around $200 USD. The space is tight and I probably should have gotten a larger one, but they would have had to order it and that could have taken weeks. So to save on cost, I got the largest they had and it all fits in fine. In fact I have room for the new 5D that Canon may never release, sigh. It has two removable and adjustable shelves and thus gives you three areas to stack your equipment. I have my 5D body with the battery grip, most of my lenses including my 70- 200 2.8 on the bottom shelf. The in the middle shelf my H4 Zoom digital recorder, my 50mm 1.8, two Pocket Wizards and two flashes. On the top shelf there is not much room left so I have two WD Passport Drives and my Pocket Rocket full of CF cards just to be safe. I keep the relative humidity set at 43. I wish I could tell you where to purchase this in the States but with AC running in every home, I don’t think there is a big need. So I hope this is the answer to the humidity problem. I’ll let you know.