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Adventure Photography Gear Show & Tell

I'm going to go through you know there's lots of gear out there there's lots of choices I'm just going to go through and tell you the year that that works in my work folks the stuff that I like and if you you know if you use a different kind of camera etcetera take this with these air the focal length seasonal lenses maybe that might work and you work your workflow um you know to start we talked about those exposures on the beach and the the basis uh sturdy tripod you really need to start with a story tripod uh there's an old you know, wise tale about you know how do you have a two thousand dollar tripod? Well, you go and you buy two hundred fifty dollars tripod it breaks goodbye forty dollars tripod you don't use it but it's too heavy and then you go by the one you should have bought the beginning and all of a sudden you've got a two thousand dollar tripod so tripod sturdy uh hopefully now relatively lightweight but pick the gear that you will use if you're not going to go live in you...

r trunk and you're not going to carry it don't bother buying it so sorry tripod I like this gets a tripod and a systematic ball head which is very sturdy for doing those long exposures and then one of my favorite new things is a waterproof shockproof interchangeable lens underwater camera uh nikon a w one has interchangeable lenses this is a ten millimeter which turns out to be about a twenty eight in film factor it'll shoot fifteen frames a second but kind of fun it's a great bag camera it's waterproof and shockproof so it's a great one to go in the bag uh on a budget I would say the seven fifty nine twenty seven fifty would be my first choice ah small compact form factor she's tentative p video as well uh twenty four mega pixels but might go to and it may be because I did launch the night conti eight ten for nikon it may have a soft spot in my heart, but this is my favorite camera primarily because it's thirty six megapixels I prefer tohave a higher megapixel camera just because I'm looking to get is much detail out of these things is possible uh also looking for a sensor that has good dynamic range so when you're going out and you're trying to find your own camera um look for those things look for those reviews that say alright, this camera not only is is good but it has a good dynamic range because that's really what what really makes those princes and the surf images you saw earlier today at sunset were able to pull those shadows shadows out and still have some information there and make interesting pictures so it gives us that you know ability to be you know, flexible s o the g eight ten here the most affordable lens in my kit is a fifty millimeter one point eight everybody makes this uh all manufacturers you can buy off brand as well. This would be the single most beneficial lens if you're looking to get it's second lens outside of a kit linz because it's got a one eight amateur meaning it lets a lot of light in er and it's a normal angle of view so it allows you to you know, take photos handheld after ah the sun goes down uh and then my personal favorite it's expensive but I love it twenty four one four lengths this is great for my night photography I'm out there shooting stars I could be shooting it's you know, one four, two and therefore, you know, wide angle of view I could drop my s o down a little bit and still be getting lots of light through the lens razor sharp uh as well twenty millimeter one point eight great lens a cz. Well, because it's small and compact and then from there the sixty millimeter that should be my for shooting video one of my favorite favorite cause this is a macro lens, so if you find a macron the forty five millimeter to sixty millimeter range a great way to diversify your photos you can also use it for normal photography could use for portrait it's a little bit longer focus pole so remember when you're focusing it's going to take a little bit longer but being a macro all of a sudden you khun diversify your images because you can get closer to your subject and you could start making those three picture packages like I talked about all of a sudden you're starting to do a little bit of visual variety so that all your pictures or not the person is the same size in every single frame and that's what we want to get away from um fourteen to twenty four amazing landscape lens eyes you know one of the sharpest minds I've ever had uh the only thing that keeps me from taking out all the time is it's hard to get a filter on the front of it and I particularly like tohave filters which I'll talk about in a minute uh because it just gives me more flexibility when the sun's going down to have longer exposures so on and so forth but as you can see big element on the front there uh the winning as faras the one lands of iron to recommend one lens to anybody that for a all around lends the twenty four to seventy twenty four to seventy is a great lens because twenty four his wide angle you know enough to do landscapes but seventy millimeter it's a it's a medium telephoto so you can still do portrait's and things like that on being two eight when the sun goes down or you're inside you can still shoot this handheld so again a two eight lens is always going to be a little more expensive because it's built toe let more light in isa faster linds sixteen to thirty five is a great travel ends it's enough for image stabilization says v are on it so when your gives you a little bit longer when your hand holding but sixteen, two thirty five and then having the threads on the front like to be able to put filters um is great and when you buy your lenses as you know, the fifty millimeter obviously doesn't have the same thread size a cz thie sixteen to thirty five but try to stay consistent within a few millimeters if you can standard size seventy seven millimeter for most of pro lenses so that when you buy these filters these nd filters the polarizer you know all these things, these filters that they all fit so you don't have to start over from scratch, so when you're when you're out there by the next lens think through that process uh again the three hundred or four this is what we used in the big sur shoot with eric um it's a friend ellen's, which means that it is able to be a lot shorter on a lot lighter weight it's a new type of technology that just came out, which is pretty awesome, but having an f four lands at three hundred very lightweight on that compression. Really, whether it's ah, new three hundred for old trade off for having a three hundred millimeter lens really draws that background close and gives you that sense of immediacy where, you know your your subject is like on that background you're like, whoa, you feel like you're right they're like that's when you see these sports pictures where they sort of leap off the page same thing using that telephoto allows you to do that uh, I always take a converter. Uh, this is ah, one point four converter. Um, because I want to be able to, uh, you'll see in the next segment will be shooting some sports action, some surfing er the eight of four hundred I could put that on this and we can shoot sports action, which is really cool. Eso having a four hundred millimeter lens being able to hand hold that, uh it has vibration reduction as well. We'll handle that back in the days when I had my first four hundred, it came in a suitcase you had to wheel it down down the street but now having a foreigner millimeter four five, five six is great and when you put the converter on it basically it's like a hand held six hundred millimeter so all of a sudden you've got a pretty cool sports lens just built in filters are really important I use threaded filters a cz well as ah filter system this is the high tech filter system that will allow me to put a square or rectangular filters in on the reason I would use rectangular filters uh such as these fire crest from high tech is all of a sudden I've got a graduated for a soft grad filter that could move up and I can move down on that horizon line to be able teo stop down that sky because it's sunset typically our skies the brightest point and if we can knock that down and keep our foreground exposure right all of a sudden we're we're having a lot more flexibility so the format high techs are the ones I wait the ones I get with on that uh the fader filter again format high tech that allows me to turn that neutral density up and down from one stop to eight stops is a great thing to have um this is actually a kit full of colored filters I've got sunset I've got sunrise they're blue, they're red they're pink and all you know some of them I've never used in some you go oh that today is the day and you so I carry this big old box of glass and resin filters around for that special occasion I usually carry around not necessary in my camera bag but my kit I will carry my port folio with me uh along with my laptop this drive that just came out from g technology is waterproof shockproof so on actually drove over one of these with a car and it came out ok s o you know it's one of those things where I get calls and I'll go to big sur wherever and all of a sudden reclines like oh we need this picture today so I'll keep you know a selection of images on these and make sure they're safe uh my little kit here this is something that I use these little bags you can get him at r e I or wherever but they have cleaning costs you know I have a bunch of them that are still still in the wrapper because they're not contaminated they're clean they're ready to go and I'm not rubbing grit into my lenses uh also have cleaning solution for my lenses and then this is a big one I have badger hair make up precious because you know I always want to look good outside just joking but after every day when I get back I basically will clean the camera and get all the dust around before I take these lenses off I will clean around the camera clean the eyes pieces and then wiped them down with the micro fiber cloth so doing these few things will hopefully save you a lot of headache and a lot of post processing in the future additionally I always have ah a flashlight small flashlight um and this one I have in particular because it has a receptacle for a little light painting ones so I can use this for like painting after the sun goes down and uh waken sort of get the light we want and we can put color gels on this and all kinds of fun stuff so kinda interesting uh many headlamp always having a mini headlamp because you don't want to be dropping things it a shoot all of a sudden you're you know left here fifty millimeter lands sitting in the dirt uh and a blower for a little maintenance out in the field uh additionally uh f stop backpack here I love these little the column internal carrying units they're great for all your little pieces you can throw them in a pelican case or you conceal them your suitcase you got all your bits your micro fiber costs your extra c f s key cards um and I was carrying a goal zero battery pack you saw that in the show this is ah basically a solar panel and this will recharge this and then I can be recharging my batteries on site I can plug in my laptop I can keep my twitter account updated because my phone is always charged you know they're really important things in life ah little little led light that kiss that checks out just a little bit of light we can put in a tent for very, very long exposures just hang it in the tent and then as you saw in the video we were using the pro photo be ones which are awesome and part of the thing is this little cred this ten degree grid this thing is like magic because what it does is it channels that light and keeps it exactly where I wanted to go and keeps it off where I don't and being able to control all of these with this one transmitter being able to control three banks a b and c and then multiple lights in those banks as well makes it really kind of cool to do things very quickly uh like modifiers shamir octo plus again on the pro photo guy here um and then additionally it has an egg crate grid from like tools so same thing is channeling all of that like keeping it where I want the light to be kicking went off where I don't uh also a little little er collapsible beauty dish you can see everything needs to pack down and go in a backpack were shooting outside typically uh I'm not carrying c stands you know, having somebody hold the light as you saw in the video so all this has to be packed up and ready to go and last but not least reflectors they come in all shapes and sizes uh this comes in a gold a soft silver all kinds of things so between all of these little bits and pieces we were able to go out and do so pretty cool scene are from pickle things on site do you have any questions right here? I saw the hand first um helping to use polarizer tze you mentioned use video yeah, we'll use polarizer um but I typically don't use them on anything wider than a fifty millimeter and the reason I don't do that because typically on the outer edges of like a twenty four millimeter, sixteen or twenty you get uneven blue sky. So typically if I'm gonna use a polarizer I'm or the thirty five to fifty millimeter range, so to do that I will step back er and the second thing I don't use polarizer is for our people the reason I don't use a polarizer with people is because the natural sheen that you have on your skin is taken away because polarizer is job is to cut claire so by taking that natural sheen off, it makes people look a little haggard, so but I do use polarizer is is a great way to stop, you know, knock a little bit of light out and so on. So forth, the backpack f stop backpack, which is awesome if you're going to get out and you're going to be shooting any kind of outdoor travel photography, no matter what kind of baggy pick make sure it's comfortable, it works with your system. You saw the sling bag from have stopped as well that I have for my three camera kit this in ways, you know, only about a pound and a half when it's empty, the more weight I can shave off of the gear and, you know, the happier my back is, uh, ryan doesn't like carrying all this stuff, so, um, occasionally to carry my own gear, but, you know, with this, this whole system, you know, and I don't take all of this on every shoot, like it'll be a three three lens kit, couple bodies, it could possibly be a lot of gear for doing video, but that's a whole other discussion for another class.