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Clothing & Safety Gear

(gentle music) All right, you guys. Camera tools, gear, safety equipment, what have you. This is one of my favorite sections because the tech talk, the gear talk, I get really psyched on. And basically again, what I wanna reiterate is that you don't need every single piece of this. This is just the kit that I've put together, because what can happen is sometimes you're on a family trip somewhere. Again, for me, I remember being in Hawaii. I was in Kauai, my family. It was epic weather and I was like, I wanna go fly. And I called a local little airport thing and I was like, do you guys have any flight sync tours? And they were like, "Yeah, call this number." I flew with them for two days straight and it was like the most incredible flying of my life. Some of the best images I've ever shot, and luckily I brought my kit. And the thing is, is that by bringing my flight kit, my cameras, everything I needed, and showing them and sharing my experience, they're like, "Okay, cool. We'll take ...

the door off for you. We know, you know what you're doing. We know you have the experience." And that really goes a long way just to simply show that you're prepared. And one of the things I kinda want to address before I get into this is that if you are getting into a helicopter or any flying contraption for that matter and they are requiring you to put on a harness, I just wanna usher you in all seriousness to know how to undo that harness with your eyes closed and with one hand, if needs be. In a very serious note, most if not all deaths from those scenarios have happened because people either can't get off their harness or can't unattach it. I prefer if I'm flying doors off in a heli or a Cessna or anything like that, to have my own harness that I'm bringing, because I know how it operates. I know where you can loosen it. I typically use just a traditional climbing harness and I feel really comfortable and safe there, unless I've had a chance to spend time with that pilot. And one of the things that you should know is that successful images are created with relationships that you've built with those pilots. Typically, that is one of the most important things, and I'll probably be reiterating this again because it is such an important lesson. Now, what is this? This is just a little tiny Patagonia bag. It's used to hold my climbing gear and I kinda change it to now hold my flight gear, which is what I call it. Now, you might hear this word flight bag, right? Which a lot of pilots have kind of a little bag that has their headset and all their stuff. That's not what this is. This is like the essential gear that I might need to fly out of a, again, out of a doors off heli or doors on heli or Cessna or something along those lines. You don't always need it, but it's good to have. What's in this? This breaks apart on one side. I'm gonna show you maybe three of the most essential items. The first thing is a balaclava, right? Goes over your head. Let me just tell you, I don't care if you're flying in Hawaii, I don't care if flying in freaking middle of America or somewhere like that where it's just hotter than heck. It can get really cold, really cold in those planes in those helis. One of the things you have to keep in mind is, if the doors are off, you're not just dealing with the temperature outside the wind shield. I remember one time being in Canada. It was early late fall, and I'm in Banff area, right? And I'm flying in a heli, doors are off. It was -80 degrees up there. 80. I mean, I had every piece of equipment that I possibly could wear. So first and foremost, dress slightly warmer than you think. Obviously, this is just something that will take time. If you start sweating, the beauty is you can usually take some layers off, but again, this is what comes with me always. This is a balaclava. Just really simple, goes over the head. Has a little opening for the mouth right here. The one thing I like about these is that when you do put on a headset, this can kinda just create a little barrier over your ears and everything like that. so that headset's not rubbing against your ears and all that. So first piece of equipment. Second piece of equipment would be bringing a lightweight pair of gloves. These are just kind of a rubbery texture covered and phone accessible pair of gloves. That's what this little metal is here for. This is just something that, again, you could use on a hot day flying. There's some situations where you don't need thick gloves and you just wanna be nimble. You need to make sure, you need to make sure that whatever glove you use, you have tested. There's no point in getting a thick pair of gloves or any pair of gloves if you cannot actually touch the dials of your camera or operate it or your phone or whatever. Now, I guarantee you that nobody's gonna get up in the air and not use their cell phone. So make sure that if you get a pair of gloves, your thin pair of gloves, that you can actually access the phone or you can swipe up or do whatever you need to do. Because the last thing you wanna be doing is trying to swipe, trying to swipe, trying to swipe. And then all of a sudden you're like, "I can't use it." Tear your glove off and then you do use your phone and then your hand is literally freezing. And the thing that really is a bummer is there's nothing you can do to warm it back up. You're not gonna like open your jacket and put it in here, breathe on your hand. Like, you're exposed to the wind. You need to be prepared for that, 'cause it will guarantee get colder. So I always bring a pair of thin gloves and I always bring a pair of thick gloves. Now, I brought kind of two examples here, right? Now, I would not wear these together. I would probably opt for these mittens and I'm gonna show you why. This is more of a traditional pair of gloves, just a a thick winter glove. These are from Black Diamond. One of the things that's nice about these is obviously you do have every single little finger you can touch. And what I try to do when I talk about camera equipment and setting everything up, I try to set my camera up to have the least, for me, to have the least amount of dials and buttons I need to push as possible. What I mean by that? Well, I don't wanna get up there and be like, I'm in the menu setting and I'm organizing all this stuff 'cause that's gonna be a pain with these gloves. So I wanna set it up to really, all I have to do is zoom it, maybe touch the dial, and push the trigger, right? I might put it on shutter speed priority or something along those lines, or manual if I have access to it and it's not that cold. So this is what I might wear in like Iceland in the winter or something like that. But what I really prefer is a glove like this. This is actually a glove that I designed with Black Diamond. Purpose built. And what this glove does, is it opens up and allows you to bring your fingers out. This is a glove I specifically designed for photographers and videographers. What you would do is you'd wear your thinner glove or you basically store a thinner glove in this pocket right here, right? And this thinner glove is very rubbery. And basically what you do is you'd be able to touch the dial, move whatever you need to move. You can bring your thumb outta here. And then kind of when you're done shooting or when that scene is done or you've passed over, you can just bite this, kinda pull your hand in. And yeah, your hand can be exposed. You can zip it up, but it's nice to just have it covered, 'cause if the wind is coming this way, you might just wanna have this thing next to your chest, right? The whole point is really blocking it from the wind. So I always bring a pair of winter gloves. Doesn't matter if I'm, again, I'm flying in Hawaii or whatever. You never know. I remember flying in Utah one time in the summer. I was flying over Navajo land and it was beautiful and it was super hot, like 95 degrees, something like that. And a storm cell came through and we had to climb to 14,000 feet in order to avoid it. And I've never shipped so much in my entire life. I've never felt like more bone chilling cold than that moment. And I remember being in shorts and a light jacket and just being like, what? Why did I not bring all the essentials? So this is the first part of this kit, okay? Gloves. All right? In addition to gloves, just bring warm socks, right? It's just like a smart thing to do. Typically you can kinda hide your feet inside of the helicopter. It's usually your upper body that's sort of hanging out, right? So not as essential, but I would highly suggest bringing a warm pair of socks or, again, just preparing for what you think you might experience up there. Okay, the next part of this kit. (objects clattering) All right. Here we go. This, boom! (objects clattering) And bunch of carabiners. Okay, so carabiners. First of all, this is a mixture of basically locking carabiners, oval carabiners that are just really easy. You can remove with your finger like this. I have about three of those in here. (carabiners clicking) And then I have two locking biners, right? And what are locking biners? Locking biners are where basically you would be able to slide it with your thumb to where it can open or slide it completely closed, right? Same one, I bring two of these. This is also just another little thing that's called a hero clip. And this is actually not a load bearing carabiner, meaning you couldn't put like a hundred, you know, 300, 400 pounds on it. This is basically something you could just hang something like a camera bag or something like that. It features a carabiner on one side and a hook. So if you're in a situation where you are in a helicopter and you maybe are gonna be potentially going with the door off and they want you to have a harness, you wanna have a harness, I'm showing you this equipment here, because if in fact you have to jimmy-rig or make your own harness, you wanna be using something that you feel comfortable with. Why would I have all these carabiners and why would I have all these climbing slings, right? Well, this is a mixture of climbing general, just climbing slings as well as daisy chains. And a daisy chain is something where there are these tiny little eyelets throughout. So you have multiple places to hook anything you need to. Well, when you start to understand the need and the importance to connect everything to either your body or the craft itself, these come in handy. And what I mean by that, is that ultimately you're gonna be having your camera bag, which, yes you might have these tiny, like thin little straps, but in order to make sure this thing is really attached to you, I wanna double down and I wanna slip this thing through here and make sure I have an attachment not to my seatbelt, but to something in the plane that might go under the seat, right? So if for some reason I'm moving and bumping something and I bump this whole bag out, I wanna make sure this is connected, not just to me, but to the plane itself, to the craft. A lot of times, again, this is mostly for a door off scenario where underneath the seat there might be a little tiny piece of metal that you could hook this to. Or if you're wearing a harness, you can connect all these things to your harness. And I really truly mean all these things even your gloves, for example. It's important to bring a pair of gloves that might have a little risk saver here or a little clip here that you could basically attach both of these to something like this and then have it off to your side, why? Because all of this stuff can start to become kinda messy up in that cockpit, right? And you wanna make sure it's all connected to you or connected to the plane for that matter. Because the last thing you wanna do is be dropping a lens and having it hit the the tail of the helicopter or something like that. Now this is a harness. This is a very, very light alpine harness from Black Diamond. This is just literally something that can crunch down into next to nothing. Under most circumstances, I really would not need this. If I'm flying in a Cessna, no need. I've got a seatbelt, doors closed. I'm just opening the window. If I'm flying in a helicopter, yeah, I would probably want to use this harness because although, yes, I have a seatbelt on and although I feel safe, you might wanna be able to loosen that seatbelt so you can get out over the wing or out over the strut that's right there. This harness what it allows me to do is slip it on my waist. And then what I have, is I have these little guys right here. It's kind of another little glorified daisy chain, but this is actually treated to where this can hold. like a lot of weight. This could hold essentially a fall. So what I would do is I would take something like this. I could clip it through here or I could push this little daisy chain through here and loop it and then attach something along these lines. So of course, it would be really uncomfortable if my camera bag fell out or something else fell out on me and fell outta the plane, but it's gonna help it from potentially going into the tail rotor or potentially falling and losing all your equipment or whatnot. So having this is really crucial. The other reason why you might have a harness obviously is to simply harness yourself to that plane, right? Oftentimes if you're shooting door off, you don't really wanna have the seatbelt on you because the whole point is to be out kinda over that strut looking and being able to shoot as as far out as you can. There are times where I'm four to five feet from the plane and it's really just this daisy chain right here that's giving me my sort of leash. So oftentimes I'll have two. This is why I kinda have one that's just basically long and stretched out. And I've kind of made a knot in it here 'cause I wanted to shorten it to this level. The reason the daisy chain is super nice is because you can obviously double it back through any one of these holes and shorten this up. So if you're like, "I just need to have four feet of distance," cool, I'm gonna shorten it to that Or you can carabiner this to there and then carabiner this to yourself, right? To your harness. And ultimately this is gonna give you a safety line that you feel like you can trust. The reason I do like this system, again, is because I know full well that I can have my eyes closed, unclip this thing. I know how this operates with one hand. I mean, pretty much all the climbing equipment is meant to be operational with one hand. And that's kind of what makes it so functional, is that oftentimes when you are on a wall and you're holding somebody, you basically can reach down and you can undo a carabiner, unclip something, and not need to give two hands to it. So just something to consider. I think the general safety of these situations is you wanna be using equipment you feel comfortable with and if you're comfortable climbing or if you're comfortable utilizing some of this stuff and if you've played with it before, you're gonna feel comfortable utilizing it and trusting your life to it, really, in a plane. Now I wanna go over kind of some bags, right? So this is just a padded case that I put all my camera gear, right? This is basically my like kinda go-to little setup. But the thing about this is that unless I'm in a Cessna where I can just put it at my feet and we're in a plane and there's plenty of space, or I'm shooting in a helicopter with the door on, I can normally just put this in front of me and there's no big deal. I don't need to have anything else. But occasionally what happens is, I kinda get a situation where I am gonna be doors off or maybe you're shooting out of a trike. A trike would be like a motorcycle-like winged craft where you're kind of in a seat, but everything's exposed. So if you wanna bring more than one piece of equipment, you might wanna be throwing this into inside of something that is sort of like a lumbar pack, right? This is a lumbar pack. And what that means is that it actually has a lumbar clip. So it clips around your waist. This can also go around your neck. So ultimately point here being that you would be able to put this around your neck, put this around your waist, clip it to your waist. And then that will provide you with kind of this big, open pouch in the middle here, right? And this whole entire padded system can just plop into here. (lumbar pack clattering) Boom! Now what I love about this? Well, again, even if you're in a power paraglider where the pilot's behind you, you really want your whole system in front of you. Of course, of course, you're still gonna have your camera strap attached to you and you might want your harness on and you might want this bag attached to you with one more lanyard, carabiner, or something along those lines. But the key component is, where do you want your equipment? And oftentimes in a plane, you don't need it all right here. Oftentimes in a heli, you don't need it all right here. But if in fact you are maybe door off or something along those lines, or you are shooting in a trike or you're shooting in a para glider, you're gonna want everything kind of right here, tucked up. The nice thing about this, is that everything can kinda sit down and you can just close it or close it. Or another good scenario is to be able to have a carabiner where you can just go like this and it's closed and it's attached to you somewhere or you can open this up, right? 'Cause you're kind of getting in and outta that bag quite a bit. Now, this system can be really just useful in general for kinda toting around cameras, right? You can go straight from kind of your plane. You have this bag, you have this bag. You're good to go. This is really all you need. All these gloves and these things. These would basically be going into kind of your flight kit here. So between this kit and this kit, this is pretty much everything I would ever need to shoot an aerial photograph, besides obviously a drone. Now I wanna kind of go over the camera system in and of itself here. Quickly, pull this thing out for you and show you exactly what's inside.