Pelican hard cases. foam vs dividers

[Ryguyinlj]

Hello

I am looking to get a nice
pelican hard case for my equipment and I am looking for a few opinions of other avid photographers out there. I am curious, what do you (or would you) prefer, their pick and pluck foam or their padded dividers and why?

Much thanks,
Ryon

[FadderUri]

Hello

I am looking to get a nice
pelican hard case for my equipment and I am looking for a few opinions of other avid photographers out there. I am curious, what do you (or would you) prefer, their pick and pluck foam or their padded dividers and why?

Much thanks,
Ryon

The one that I bought came with both. Personally, I don't like either system. The padded dividers don't let you customize quite enough, and the pick and pluck foam tends to have unintended pieces start falling off eventually. What I did was go to the crafts store, and buy a sheet of foam a bit bigger than the case. Then, I cut it myself to the exact sizes for all my equipment. It seems much more secure that way to me. One caveat here... cutting the foam is a royal pain. I found the best way to do it is to outline the areas you want to cut out, and compress the foam as much as possible. Then use an Exacto knife to cut the foam.

[Ryguyinlj]

My main concern with the foam is the fact that it might become brittle and chip off in little chunks that could get into my equipment. Anyone have this problem?

My main concern with dividers is that it wont give enough protection.

[FadderUri]

Make sure you use a good, high quality foam, and that shouldn't be a problem. The biggest thing to make foam degrade is exposure to sunlight. If you keep an eye on it, you'll notice that the foam will begin to give off a type of "dust". At that point, you'll need to replace it... with a good foam, that will be 6-7 years.

BTW, I buy mine at a high end sewing and crafts store.

[Cowgirl]

I've had my Pelican 1610 w/ Dividers for about one year now and it works great for me! The dividers are good quality, and I move them about easily.

I too was worried that the foam would crumble, or make a mess.

Overall the case is super tough. I also use a pelican lock.

[another view]

Never had a problem with the foam in the case I used to have, but my problem with it was that I couldn't change what I put in it - at least not much. Because of that, if I bought another one I'd probably get the divider case that fits inside. LowePro also makes some nice cases that are designed to fit.