In the last few months I’ve received a handful of gear questions from people following my Facebook fan page and blog. Last weekend in Interlaken, a few people were interested in knowing what kind of lighting gear I was packing. While this blog is really meant to showcase my recent projects and share more of my work with you, I will diverge briefly and embrace my inner “gear head” to show off some of my favorite gadgets. Almost all of this stuff goes with me on any kind of commercial assignment or wedding shoot. I do pair it down and go light when doing things like engagement shoots and travel or mountain photography. I’ve got a slew of smaller camera bags to fit those lightweight missions, but when a client is depending on me to produce, I take comfort in knowing that I’ve got everything with me that I will need to come through for them.

Brace yourself. Gratuitous technical jargon to follow…
BIG MAMA

To begin with, I’ve been carrying my kit in a LowePro Computrekker Plus AW backpack for about the last 3 years and I’m still loving this bag. Her name is “Big Mama.” This is a healthy-sized backpack with good padding throughout, movable gear dividers, and nice cushy shoulder straps. It has no internal frame, and no, it does not have airport wheels. While the bag does come in a wheeled version, the wheel system eats up valuable space and adds about 3.5 lbs. (1.8 kg) to the bag’s weight. You cannot put a full-sized DSLR (with grip) in the wheeled version as easily as you can this bag. Outside of the airport I would never roll it anyways. Often I’ve got other luggage with me which has wheels. When transporting, I prefer to keep my gear close by and keep from sending to many vibrations through the bag which would be unavoidable if it were bouncing along on the cobbled streets of Europe, or along a dirt and gravel road in the boonies (two places I often find myself). Speaking of airport, yes, it does meet the carry-on requirements of most airlines. Mine has been over the Atlantic at least five or six times.

A few other features make this a highly desirable “all-in-one” bag for me. It has a laptop compartment which will fit a 17 inch notebook and/or a clipboard with my shot list and model releases, a full-sized tripod (or even several light stands) can be attached to the outside via a handy attachment system, it comes with a pullout weather cover to protect against sudden downpours or excessive dustiness, and last but not least a super handy outer pocket will carry bulky items like a rain jacket, a fold up reflector disc, some lunch, or a favorite teddy bear.

PACKED CONTENTS (seen in photo above):

A: Nikon D700 body with MB-D10 battery grip.
B: Nikon D300 body.
C: Nikon 70-200 f2.8 VR lens.
D: Nikon 24-70 f2.8 lens.
E: Nikon 12-24mm f4.0.
F & H: Nikon SB-900 strobes. I have three of these (one is hiding under the 70-200) They are the backbone of my lighting kit.
G & I: Hoods for the 24-70 and 70-200. Essential. I never shoot without them.
J & K: Ditty bags. These hold all of the smaller items that would get lost easily without a great way to store them.
L: I call this “the pit.” It’s a spot where I throw oddly shaped items (in this case some lighting grip and a hood).
M: Big zipper pockets for doo dads and nick nacks.

THE HARDWARE:

A: Nikon D700 with MB-D10 battery grip. My main camera. Full frame goodness. Love it!
B: Nikon D300 (backup body). Also comes in handy when shooting ala “Two Pistol Pete.”
C: Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 VR. This is my workhorse telephoto lens. Most professionals cannot live without one. I am no exception. I would say 75% or more of my work gets done with this lens.
D: Nikon 24-70mm f2.8. My go-to mid length and wide angle lens. Excellent piece of glass.
E: Nikon 12-24mm f4.0. I’m hanging onto this one until I upgrade to two full-frame bodies. It’s equates to a handy 18-36mm on the D300 and does the trick in tight situations. However, I’m using this lens less and less in favor of the 24-70mm. I would rather have a 14mm f2.8 or the new 24mm f1.4 instead.

OTHER BAG CONTENTS

A: My “Little Buddy.” A small Domke over-the-shoulder-accessory-holder. Love this thing. I bought it in college. No sign of fatigue. Sometimes I slip my belt in through the belt loop and rock it batman style, other times I use the cotton shoulder strap. Very handy for carrying a few essentials on my person without having to run back and forth to Big Mama.
B: Lens wipers. One is a leather chamois (for wiping rain off of gear/lenses), the other is micro fibre (for putting a spit-shine on my glass). Figure of speech. I don’t spit on my camera gear.
C: Makeshift rain cover for camera and telephoto lens. Must have if you are going to make pictures in the drizzle. I’ve ordered a more durable one from a company in Seattle. Hopefully it’s an improvement on mine.
D: Flexible black foam. I use a couple of these as gobos on my SB-900s. A hair bungee band keeps it in place on my strobe.
E: White balancing disc. Point it at your light source and achieve perfect custom white balance. Easy.
F: Polarizing filter. Doesn’t get used to often. Cuts back to much light. I pull it out when shooting on snow or when shooting over the water. I wish it was the Nikon version.
G: Nikon AA battery tray. I’ve been using this recently to get 8 frames per second out of my D700. Lithium batteries or rechargeable NiMH work pretty well in this regard. Also a good backup item in case of a battery crisis (ie. no place to plug in a charger).
H: Notebook, pen, pencil and cotton swab. First three are no-brainers. Cotton swab can help clean stubborn smudges off of sensitive camera parts.
I: Graduated neutral density filter. Useful for landscapes. I’ve probably used it twice since I bought it 12 years ago. I’m just not a big filter guy. Should probably take it out of my bag.
J: Sustenance. Very important. In my experience, when blood sugar drops, so does picture quality.
K: CF cards. I prefer 8 GB cards, but still use my 4 GB and old 2 GB cards when needed.

Also shown: Ear plugs (industrial shoots), Swiss Army Knife, and an extra camera body cap.

THE LITTLE DITTIES (spilled open…)

INSIDE “LIL DITTY #1” (mostly lighting related items)
A: Nikon flash diffuser and gel holders for SB-900
B: SB-900 flash feet. (to stand the strobe on a table, or connect to a light stand).
C: Colored gels used (to correct for the most commonly encountered light source mix-ups).
D: Sekonic Flashmate light and flash meter. I don’t really use this anymore. It was handy back in the film era. These days it comes in handier as a way to explain light to people who are learning lighting technique.
E: Nikon SC-17 hot shoe cord. Very handy when running and gunning with off camera flash in one hand and camera in the other.
F: Gary Fong “origami” light diffuser. Jury is still out on this $25 piece of plastic. It’s meant to soften direct on-camera strobe and simultaneously let some light bounce off the ceiling or wall.
G: Extra Nikon batteries. Thank god the same batts can be used in both of my cameras.

INSIDE “LIL DITTY #2” (camera related items)
A: Nikon battery charger and Euro cable. I have two of these. One lives in Big Mama, the other stays in my office. One has a USA plug and the other works in Western Europe.
B: Nikon electronic cable release. Don’t use it super often, but there is no substituting it when you need one.
C: Tripod attachment for 70-200 f2.8. Sometimes I remove it for comfort sake. I stow it here.
D: More batteries for my camera bodies.
E: Blower bulb. Don’t ever touch your camera’s sensor with anything. Blow a little air at it to remove dust, or take it to a professional. You can really screw things up if you don’t know what you’re doing.
F: Extra caps for camera bodies and lens in case one gets lost.

CAMERA SUPPORT

I avoid tripod situations as much as possible (they’re heavy, noisy, slow, and a pain to carry) but sometimes it’s just unavoidable. I have two aluminum Manfrotto tripods and a little plastic table top tripod that I use with my compact camera.

LIGHTING:

A: Three Nikon SB-900s. There are many cheaper alternatives out there but if you want to take advantage of Nikon’s internally slaved remote triggering features (which I do a lot) then these are the ticket. They’re also a bit more powerful than some cheaper off brand units. It’s possible to set up a basic lighting scenario in less than a minute if you don’t have to bother with stands, remote triggers, etc.
B: Multi Disc 5-in-1. This is a handy and packable pop-out reflector that’s sorta’ like those reversible jackets we all wore back in the 80’s. Ahem… at least some of us did, right? Anyway, one side is a solid silver reflector, one side is a solid gold reflector. A little zipper trick reveals three more sides: a zebra combination (gold+silver), a white reflector, and the core itself can act as a scrim to diffuse inbound sunlight. A marvelously versatile piece of gear. Why don’t I use it more often? Oh yeah, I need an assistant to hold it for me.
C: Manfrotto stackable 7’ (2 meter) light stands. They sandwich together to make carrying easier, and are air dampened to keep your lights from suddenly dropping if you or your assistant air-headedly lowers the extension segments to quickly.
D: Photoflex weight bags. Fill them with water at your location if you don’t want to lug/ship sand-filled bags. They fold up to easily fit in the outer pocket of Big Mama.
E: Photek Softlighter II. This super versatile piece of gear came recommended by a colleague who also values versatility and lightweight portability. It functions as a reflective umbrella, a shoot through umbrella, and a mid-sized octagonal light box. Very versatile and affordable (around $65 I think).
F: Photoflex convertable umbrella. Use it as a mid-sized reflective or shoot through umbrella.
G: Reflective discs that can be inserted into the Photek Softlighter to increase spectrocity (silver) and warm up the light (gold).
H: Carrying sack for Photek Softlighter and Photoflex umbrella.
I: Two normal umbrella brackets for connecting the strobe and umbrella to the light stand, and one Lastolite three-strobe bracket. The Lastolite is cool because it lets you juice things up with as much as three times the light (three strobes can be mounted side-by-side). This is handy when using the Phototek Softlighter as a main light source.

NOT PICTURED:

1. Panasonic LX3 pocket camera. Super little camera for unobtrusive shots and fun HD video.
2. A proper radio trigger kit. I’m waiting for Pocket Wizard to come out with something for Nikon. If it doesn’t happen soon enough then I’ll be going with Radio Poppers. I formerly used the Elinchrom triggers, but they are limited to a normal sync speed and can’t take advantage of high speed sync.
3. Sanyo rechargeable AA batteries. I use them in my strobes and sometimes in my camera bodies.
4. Various other boring little tidbit pieces of grip, etc.
5. Computers. Oh boy. We’ll save that one for another post…