Lessons

Lesson Info

Gear Bag

I got made fun of so much when I brought this camera bag out because this camera bag is beat up like nobody's business alright I ripped out my zipper on the way here it doesn't even shut but this is typically what I would bring now there's some things I didn't bring because there's just some stuff that I keep in my car it doesn't fit in the bag but I want to show you guys in general what we bring memory cards, lots and lots of one gig memory cards, batteries if you're having issue with your flash if you're having problems with your flash triggering right change the batteries that is almost always the problem then so we always have two extra sets of batteries because of a bunch of memory cards and I have my five d mark three that's why she went all the time but I'm a professional photographer and I understand that things could go wrong so I have a backup camera my backup camera is that back up camera I don't need another five d mark three as a just in case so I still use my five tv mark...

too I have seventy twenty four to seventy lens with a lens hood, which I use e I'll tell you something I don't know about you guys would like lens caps and car keys I cannot keep either one of those I lose them all the time I'm not even gonna lie to you I never know is like the worst game and we play it like every day at the city owned I'm like all right I got to go someone help me find my keys I can never find out is the same thing with lens caps they're always missing so if you buy lens calves they're crazy expensive it's annoying if you have to open up your wallet and drop a bunch of money on a lens cap not a technical piece of gear it's not like we're talking about lenses here we're talking about a little plastic thing that covers it I buy all of them on ebay for really really cheap and they work just fine and I buy them in like the sets of twenty five and I don't even care if we lose them because I'd rather just go to my drawer and grab a new one than spend any time looking for them it's like a buck I don't care so out of order though let's talk about another great ebay purchase that you guys should make these are amazing it's an I shoot radio trigger alright this works it comes in a box this goes on your camera this goes in your hot shoe mount okay it comes a four of these all you're gonna do with this is put your speed light in the hot shoe and go this now will wirelessly communicate from my camera to my flash. No more direction, no more line of sight needed. Okay, the only problem with these is you lose t t al ability. It won't do that. Okay, so what you need to do is understand that if you're doing this the shooting, your shooting, emmanuel that's it that's all it is, this is the this is a dummy tool. It is just saying, hey, you go off, everything else is your control now, why do we use thes? Because in the times that I need off camera flash where I'm going to shoot like that, that I want to use a bunch of speed, lights and stuff, I can take the time I'm going to get into that it's usually because I'm ahead of schedule on a session, I have a little bit more time, they want a specific look, and we'll we'll take the time to set it up. But this cost, like about thes about four sets of, ah, a couple of years ago, and I think they were forty bucks a set. So cheap gear, cheap gear, not hundreds and hundreds of dollars. I mean, this is tens of dollars, but I think everybody can afford tens of dollars on your photography equipment, and it works. So don't go drop a ton of money on this stuff right? So that's always in there and talk to you about my flash no, I do not have the six hundred speed bites I would love them I think they're awesome I also don't think they're worth the upgrade for me and although I wish that I could just buy them I'm going to use these until they stop working which could be whenever because my hobby is like dropping these so I send these in all the time and I'm also a big believer in the five eighty e x ones I don't like the e x twos but why matthew? The twos are newer for this simple fact it isthe super easy for me to turn my flash on the slave mode master mode like that doesn't mean that's it now with the five eighty x two you're in there it just takes its mohr steps you gotta click it through the you got to go through the program files you got to go through and turn it on and I just like it's on it's off anyone's got any old five eighty x once because you upgraded to the six hundred give me a call I will buy them from you because I love them all right? The other thing that I like that I would like to point out and when we were talking about that flash compensation go into your cannon flashes I'm certain that this is available on the icon and stuff too but I have my custom functions set up so I literally just go like this I roll the wheel and it changes the exposure compensation no time I taken image I look in the back of my camera that needs more light roll it up roll it down don't spend time monkeying around with the equipment so I love these flashes old they're like two generations old and I love them because they let me get my work done the way I like it to look and let me do it fast so I have to of those another cheap trick this okay so this it is a battery pack for your flash wear it on your where on your hip increases your uh increases your recycle time and it means that the batteries in your flash aren't actually getting used if you have this plugged in your flashes on ly using the power in this and the power that's in the flash is on ly running the lcd screen everything that goes that sets it off is from this okay so you go by the cannon one right it's crazy expensive it's a battery holder it takes double a's I bought mine from flash zebra dot com sorry guys that are improbable go try it maybe maybe they'll do something I don't have that for you goto flash zebra dot com it's the same thing and they're like a third the price so get good gear but good gear doesn't have to be expensive gear just make sure that you're getting stuff that's working try it out asking buddy try one see if it's all right then maybe move forward online google product reviews make sure you're getting something that's that's working but love this huge always have that that and especially that's big like for our sports gigs if I'm shooting kids I mean I need to just recycle and go recycle and go recycle and go and that speeds up the recycle time enough that it's absolutely worth the money we spent it and they think it was like forty bucks thirty bucks all right seven, two hundred lands in reality this like never goes off my camera this is what we use okay now I'm gonna point and I'm going to say I even do this this is how ridiculous lamb this is the seventy two two hundred non I s lends you guys probably didn't even know they made a non I s lands it's true I have this lens it works great and if you actually read the reviews there are a lot of people that you can see where when you go to the iceland's it adds elements in the glass unit so it's even harder to get it can be harder to get a sharper image on this one because there's less element but as a photographer I have to maintain and be aware of my shutter speed way more with this than I would with the iast two which is cool I just don't this works just great now I want to spend more money on it and we keep using this one so but I got my phone dong what up? Gary uh love it easy lighting on the go if you you just put this on your flash and what it does is it becomes a nice diffused light it's a good system it's an easy system it's not great portrait lighting that's not how I would light my stuff but it's absolutely a good accessory when I need good lighting on the go in a leg when I have that at weddings and people are like what is that thing? And I'm like that's where I keep my things I put my car keys in there people are like really know you're just a needy it uh handfuls of pocket wizards okay why do we have pocket was it is because in reality I also would bring my alien be sixteen hundred because I bring that bring a big light if it's for a sports job I bring too and I bring s o we have tio pocket wizards to trip the alien bee and we also bring in our reflectors so the same company that we use for our big reflectors they make these smaller ones and I'm just going to use the example of the big one here because they didn't bring the smaller ones to show you guys but I have the same reflectors but they're half the size so it's like that okay, I have two of them that are reflectors and I have two of them that are a little bit bigger that are translucent panels ok, now I know that you can get like those little disc ones that you flip out and you get the circle and it's great if you're going to use it for reflecting light, what I love about the system that I have is that this allows me something to hold in the wind this doesn't get all weird and with the translucent panel we use that to create light we want to improve light so it's easier you just tell the moms toe hold it like that and this one's going too hard because it's way bigger than the ones we use and you just lifted up above the kid's head so we have a reflector in a translucent panel a similar concept of this just a little bit smaller and I think it's everything yeah, what was that? Oh yeah we have vagabond many gotta run your alien be when you're not there I mean, you know I don't have I don't have extension cords that long so the think about many it's an awesome little battery pack I just found out it does not run a cure a coffee pot try that won't work but it will power your laptop or charge your I vote or whatever else it does not have enough power to run a cop the machine so I have two of them I love them they're great it's literally it's just a little battery pack it's got two outlets flip it on its a lithium ion battery that gets you tons of pops at full power it's easy it's mobile we just take that and it's like this big ways like three pounds shoulder strap included so I love it and that's how we would that's this is what I bring to shoot I mean, this is everything so and that's how we photograph our outdoor sections so let's talk about it. We do have some questions that would love to get to some questions from brian and memphis do you have do you ever use and d filter or other types of filters while you're out? I have used them I don't typically because does everyone know what a neutral density filter is? Because I want that so you put it on and it allows you to kind of change the light that comes in to the camera so you can deal with your shutter speed it restricts the light that flows in they're cool and I have um and I have used them it's not typically my go too it's not it's, not average that's generally like I feel like playing around with it today then I'll then I'll grab it but generally no and while you were talking about media ring for your exposure calling had asked if you ever keep your camera screen brightness in the middle or do you take it down a couple notches like just the lcd screen all right, this does that matter? Do you think about that? No. Okay, I don't even think about it think that affects your exposure at all. No, I generally what it is like I have minds kind of otto so I just flip it up and I can see real quick and again I know what I'm looking for after this I mean hundreds and hundreds of session shins. I have the one thing that I do have the luxury of that a lot of retire first don't get into this industries I came into an established business, I had a job that provided me ample opportunity to shoot. I don't want like I didn't come into a business where I was starting out and I was like, I hope I get some bookings today I didn't I didn't have to go through that, so I've always had the luxury of practicing ah, lot. I've been able to shoot a lot, so I think the biggest, my biggest wedding year, was like thirty six weddings in one year. And remember that that's, that's, a lot of weddings. When you also have a portrait business, I'll give you just the wedding. Retire for thirty six. Weddings is great, right? Like, who cares? That's? Awesome. I would love to if I was just the wedding photographer. I'd love to shoot thirty six wedding, but it really was like a long year when I had to get up on monday and go in the work that I did shoot all the sessions going up to that week.