The right gear for the job

I’ve recently undertaken a project which is going to take up a little bit of time over the next few weeks, but which already I’m finding very rewarding.  I don’t mean rewarding in a monetary sense – it’s an unpaid gig – and not even necessarily in a photographic sense – as I discovered on my first outing.  I mean rewarding in that it’s exposing me to a different aspect of the world, of the city in which I live, and of society in general.  I’ll explain more on that in an upcoming post, but today I wanted to discuss the first question that came into my head as I prepared, a couple of weeks ago, for my first photographing outing as part of the project.  That question was this: what should I bring with me?

Essentially I needed to decide what was the right gear for the job, but at the time I didn’t really know what the job entailed.  But I did know a few things, namely:

1. I needed to travel light, and be mobile, but also would have a car
2. I would be photographing indoors, but also possibly outdoors, in the middle of the afternoon
3. I would definitely be photographing details
4. I would probably be photographing people
5. I would only photograph someone who agreed to be photographed
6. The people I would be photographing would probably not be used to having their photograph taken, nor would they necessarily be inclined to agree to have their photograph taken

What I didn’t know was exactly where I was going, what the layout was like, what exactly would be going on there, how many people would be there, and how much time there would be to take photographs.

More known unknowns than known knowns then, to borrow a phrase from Donald Rumsfeld.

What I packed is photographed above, and I also brought a Fuji X100 (which I used to take the photograph above).  This bag of kit is, essentially, what I consider to be the basics to cover all eventualities, and I brought it knowing that in all likelihood I would only use a fraction of it.  In fact, for the first outing I barely used any of it, but I’ll explain that in a future post.

So what was in the bag, and why?  Let me break it down for you.

The cameras – Nikon D700, Fuji X100

This is a no-brainer.  I need a camera, and in the event of something breaking, I need a second.  The D700 is perfectly suited to any sort of light, as is the X100 actually.  The reason I brought the X100 and not my second Nikon body, though, was two fold – it would help me travel a bit lighter, but more importantly it’s less imposing when you point it at someone than the D700. Taking into account point 6 above, this was important.  In fact, in my second outing as part of this project, the X100 would really come into its own.

The lenses – 24-70mm, 50mm, 80-200mm

Not knowing exactly what I would be photographing, I wanted to cover a wide range of focal lengths.  Two lenses gives me 24-200mm (almost), so that is a wide range. The 50mm was thrown in as it’s pocketable, and again, like the X100, not very intimidating even on the D700.  If I needed to limit myself to one lens and was going to end up taking portraits, I would have the option of leaving the other two in the car and sticking with the 50mm.

The light – Nikon SB-800, Nikon SB-600, Lumiquest Softbox III, Lastolite Ezybox Hotshoe Kit, Strobist Gel Kit, Skyport radio triggers

My biggest fear was bad light, or no light, so throwing a flash in the bag was a requirement.  Throwing two in was firstly for backup in the event of one acting up, but also in the hope of maybe getting time to do some one- and two-light portrait setups.  The Softbox III would allow me do a handheld setup quickly and in a small space.  The Ezybox would need more time and space, but with the carry handle also thrown into the bag and the help of an assistant that I might find on location, would allow me to even nicer one-light portraits.  The gels were really in case I was stuck in fluorescent hell and needed to correct the light from the flash to match, and the Skyport triggers were to allow me take the flash off the camera.  In my best case scenario I used half of this stuff to get some lovely moody portraits.  In reality, I didn’t use any of it.

The bits and pieces – batteries, cards, flash feet, charger, notebook

Because you can never have too many batteries and cards, and I always find it wise to have at least one charger with me in case I go mad on taking photos, and because a notebook is always in my bag.

So that’s what I brought.  It turned out that I could have brought less kit.  Much less.  In fact, for a while on that first outing I wasn’t sure I even needed a camera.  But as I said, this project isn’t necessarily all about the photos.  I’ll follow up on that soon, so stay tuned.