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Joe's Gear Bag

I guess we should go through camera bag and what I bring to a job and then maybe separate all this stuff out so I guess we do that right here on the table I'll pull it out yeah so you guys are good for now, alright, awesome. So I'm gonna try and cheat your way so that you can see what I bring um basically cannon um look uh the equipment is spectacular that's out there today nikon cannon fuji all of them sony I happen to love my cannon simply because it is who I am and the way that I think it's much like the way I use apple computers versus you know the pc ah, that are out there it just fits how I think and how I utilized the gear so that I can use it as an extension is how I worked these cannons an extension of myself so ah five demark twos right now the mark threes are on the way to me but the five demark twos I have two of them uh one will hold the twenty four seventy the other one will hold a seventy two, two hundred and uh then I have some toys that go along with it, so a fifty mil...

limeter macro which I used for my close up stuff the rings, the stuff that you saw you know, on the slide shows, uh, these they're absolutely some of my favorite lens. It's it's a fifty millimeter one point two. Right next to it is an eighty five millimeter, one point two twenty four millimeter, one point four and one of my and not a lot of people like using this thing. I love this particular lands fourteen millimeter rectilinear two point eight. When I say rectilinear, this camera rather lens is actually very good for shooting, um, architecture. So it has the perspective of a fish eye, but the lines on the edges are straight, so you don't get the bowing effect. Number one. Number two, you will still get some distortion if the subject is on the edge of the frame when you shoot it. But in light room, you have that really brilliant little tool of pushing a button and undistorted so you can pull it back in and squeeze it down a little bit. Keep all of the perspective that you saw and shot full frame, but it's adjusted for the lens that you used so brilliant. Brilliant. I do a lot of wide angle stuff and usually it's not very flattering um, but in moments I love that lens because I can capture so much of the story and if you think about it, what we do with our gear is very much like a painter an oil painter with their oil brushes right? They used the different brushes for a different strokes broad stroke uh very thin little detail lines and I kind of used my lenses the same way what's really cool about what we do is photographers is that while the artist that's a painter starts with an empty canvas we start with a full one think about it our canvas is full and we get to decide which part of it to document to to put on paper maybe it's ah ah long lens and you get a piece of it that expression maybe it's a wide angle lens and you get fifteen different stories in there somehow on the dance floor all in one frame it's just brilliant that we get a full canvass to start with instead of an empty one that we have to fill in so I really like and my lenses to the paintbrushes that painters use with the exception of course that I have them brilliant land of the uh filled in uh canvass okay, so I have five eighty e x two I have two of them just in case one fails me in this day I don't rarely rarely do I do this, but I really don't point flash directly at a subject anymore what I try and do on camera is to give me light that's coming from the side at a forty five and I'm going to show you what I do in the windows here and what I might do in the church but it's directional lighting so instead of this way at the subject for this way with the card up or not up and balancing it straight down, what you get is even lighting on both sides of the face that's called flat lighting I really don't want that I want directional light that comes from a window and when there isn't one, I create one by simply bouncing this light off the wall I've not created a window right here so the light comes from the side and what it does it gives you highlight on the side where the flash is bouncing from and shadow on the other side, right? You know what that gives you depth and that's the third dimension and it's very, very hard to shoot that way. What we typically duis two dimensional it's flat lighting it's two dimensional but we get with we get haif we rarely get depth and the way you document depth in a photograph is through shadows the use of shadows so giving me direction alight and lighting one side of the face and leaving the other and shadow gives me exactly that depth the third dimension and that's what I want it makes when you look at a photograph, the image look very deep and invites you to go in and see all that there is the sea in the image rather than just brushing it off a nice photo and walk away from it, you actually get stuck and you look at the lighting a little longer and it's it's something that you really don't think about very much, so I'll show you later how to use a flash. Um, I bring a dedicated and I know people sometimes don't use the dedicated battery packs the external battery packs for their flashes. Nikon or the others doesn't really matter, but I used to dedicated one this is the cannon ah pack, and all it does is add eight more double a's to the system. So all there is twelve batteries hooked up here, and the reason that I used the dedicated packs, while probably not as quick as some of the other external battery packs, the other brands that are external that dr, these flashes sometimes burned out the capacitor in here because if you're, uh, you know, one of those trigger happy little monkeys, t you're gonna fry the capacitor in this thing? I'm not one of those I still I'm pretty measured in the way that I shoot everything that I shoot is in single frame so I don't have I don't use thea drives the out of you know the motor drives at all in my cameras, they're never said on that it's all on single frame I want to choose my moment what I'm after is the moment between moments that's what I want to do, I want to capture the essence of the person in the moment and the perfect moment is that one the one in between the others it's, it's, it's when the bride is looking into the groom's face as he's, saying his vows and that's beautiful and there's a smile on her face, and the more he speaks the shire she gets and she looks down, she closes their eyes down there's your moment, because the moment after she looks back into his eyes, it's that one where she closes their eyes and turns your head ever so slightly that is the most intimate part of that moment amongst the others, right? So that's the one I'm after, and typically in motor drive it might be between frame six and seven, because if you just burt, you know and I see that a lot of call it spray and pray it's brooke lord, let there be one I think I got it I'm not sure, but please let there be one um I'd rather know that it's that one and so that's something you also practice just all of that I'm going to teach you if it's good for anybody anybody could do what I'm telling you today from the pitch to all of this all this shooting techniques I might show you you khun due to I'm not the only one okay so I'm gonna impart with you the things that I've learned over these years on how I do things and I just want to share this with you and I want you to practice it because that's what I do I still practice to this day again like I said before I'm a work in progress I will never finish this work I will always be a work in progress and uh there's no such thing as a perfect picture on ly a perfect moment and I think we spend way too much time trying to create that perfect picture we were in photo shop where we're trying to create this thing on post production with it doesn't exist it doesn't matter how much perfection you think you can throw at it in postproduction what matters is that perfect moment that's the only thing that's perfect okay so there's no such thing as a perfect picture only a perfect moment so practice that and it's in camera it's not in post production it's always going to be in camera capture and then enhance it make it beautiful so um we're going to add something to this my little friends illini this is a frenzy and it's the micro it's a video light and videographers typically used the mini mini is a little bigger and it's just a honking thing right? So the micro has got a variable control on it right here on and off I can add whatever available like that I want so you can get the phrase illini battery with it I figured out that that battery was twice as heavy as this idea x this is idea battery and it's a lithium is called the endure a seven seven is in seven and ss and sam and the fresno battery is twice as heavy and at full power last maybe thirty minutes this one eyes half us the weight of that one and at full power is three hours I never finished this thing at about five six weddings I still have a battery juice on it. I'm on one end of it. It tells you exactly how much you have left in this thing but I'll show you how I use that and when I use it I typically used is during the first dance I like shooting an available light and every once in a while my flash is available and so is the frenzy so um I like it on this thing now initially I slapped it on here and then I realized after the first three frames something was up and luckily we do have this thing in the back here where you can cheat and look you know, you ever see this click and then look click and I look over and over and over I see a lot of time to do that not allowed on my team we call that chimp ing do you know why we call that chimp ing it's because this is what we look like to the guests because not only do they look at every frame they're gonna blow it up they gotta roll it over is a sharp over here and by the time you finish looking at up one frame you've missed five moments that unfolded in front of you that you were never aware of because you're busy looking at this this however, is an amazing tool use it diligently and and and how you do that is let's say the bride is getting ready in the getting ready room and when she saw me she saw jennifer lopez's photo she saw christina aguilera and she said, well, joe that's really cool they're beautiful, but I'm not j lo um and actually I'm a little uncomfortable on little more overweight than I'd like to be and I have like two double chins and I'm really uncomfortable about that so I hear all that and I say, you know what I know you're not j lo, but I'm not looking for what's on the outside. I'm looking so what's on the inside and what I'm going to photograph it's what's in here. This is the most important day to you, and I'm gonna find you in here and the way that I do that at the wedding so she knows that already. But when I come to the wedding, she's still a little nervous because now I'm with my camera, right? So she's sitting in front of the mirror at a little table like this and she's looking in the mirror and for a split second she's unaware of anybody else in the room and I see it because she's just now thinking about walking down the aisle, how happy and you could almost see it on her face that just letting go of so I find a chair, I pull it over, I stand upon a chair, I grabbed a long lens and I say, christina and she looks up fam before she can respond and smile at me. I got it. Now why am I on a chair? And why did I get her attention in that moment? Here's why? Because when you look down and you have remove up with her head, it takes away the double chin. I'm not going to stand on the chair and say you know christina look up here I want to remove your double chin darling and then photograph I'm not gonna say anything what I'm going to do is simply there stand on a chair cristina she looks up bam naylor and then I walked down to say look and she'll go is that me? Yeah that's how I see you today because to capture the essence of her in that moment requires camera on awareness we have all been taught us kids to smile at the camera any time a camera comes in our face what do we do? Smile right? Because that's what we were taught here you go into the church in the back of the church is uncle henry with aunt harriet and uncle henry for a second is staring at the sealed ceiling because there's these beautiful full frescoes painted these beautiful scenes and he's just oh my god because he's totally bored with the ceremony you can tell but he's totally engrossed in that ceiling cause it's beautiful. So here comes joe and he sees joe with this and he says huh? What does he do? He grabs harriet and he looks at me says okay, now shoot all right, so the picture comes back oh, look there we are harriet oh, yeah, nice picture, henry done what if I walked by as he was gazing hand on chin at the ceiling I go boom and he here's the shutter and looks at me and goes, ah man, that was sneaky I got yep it wass but now the picture comes back and it's this one harriet, do you remember the ceiling? Do you remember the paintings on the ceiling? What comes back is a memory ah feeling because it was camera underwear it was the essence of him in that moment and he's going to remember that that's what I want him to have that's what I want the bride to have these moments between moments that are absolutely perfect because they were camera underwear so that's what I'm after with his little bag of tricks so what I showed you earlier with this frenzy because it was back here and it was on was casting a shadow because of this long I think I never shoot without a hood ever and I never put a filter on the front of my lens is why would you put an eighteen dollars piece of glass in front of a three thousand dollar piece of glass? I'll never understand that one don't do it and here's why people do it uh joe it's for protection really you know what that's for protection if you bonking into something you hit the lens hood you don't hit the lens so keep this thing on and guess what it's supposed to do keep light out so you don't get len's flor and yes there are times you want lens flare cause I looked for it at times when I was shoot straight into the sun I love it I love lens flare but keep this on for protection take that cheap piece of glass off so I'm thinking what am I gonna do about that shadow I go to video sore I find this little piece here and I say what's this for and he says it goes on a video camera like this like this and you put two lights on it's double lighting I said really turn it over it's square okay, so it goes on like that awesome. But why if it not like that well look at that uh actually mannix to extend it past my lens now my lens hood so with this plugged in and we're a little little touchy touchy touchy stuff of soft box way and then what we have already when I shoot this will be on my belt it's fist through a loop like that okay sorts of food today it's in pocket I have a variable light source that I could give a kiss of light I can add a little more mohr and its continuous I can shoot from across the room while they're doing their first dance and get nice little portrait's in p mode remember p mode in the dark with a little adult lite not with a boom flash from god it is simply an add on addition that I have here that just is incredible for the way that I use light cake cutting do you ever see people used the cake all white a bride in all white and they power up this flash all white what did they do? They blow out any detail in the cake and also in the dress so I'm in available light guy here's where my assistant comes in who also co comes with me right so I have my primary shooter and then I have my assistant who make take this thing and liked me so that its not straight on but adds what shadow on one side highlight on the other so either it's flash bounced off the wall cake in front of me right over here bounce it that way so comes in this way or if there's nothing available here it's glass or it's black which is the two things you can bounce a flash off my video let right here just like this okay now I'm still in p mode I'm still shooting available light I'm adding a little light and that's what I use this for love this okay pretty much that's what I do this is my gear this is what I come with there you go. I'm using lexx our cards um I'm trying these today like sars brilliant thirty two gigs scares me a little bit to have that much info on the card I shoot everything in small raw which on this camera's ten megabytes per file um that's roughly two thousand images on this card on one card uh typically shoot sixteen gig cards and I go through one on each camera for seven hour gig that's usually sufficient so that's about two thousand images eighteen hundred or so and today I'm going to try and use a little bit of thea thirty two hundred thirty two gigs rather and take a peek at him so that's my set up there you have it um on an occasion when I am asked to shoot film I will bring a one v as in victor canon camera for film so there's three bodies what I do is what I like is that these lenses stay on here and that my assistant will help me change out some of the other lenses that I might need throughout the day. For the most part each one is dedicated to a lens and I pretty much leave it alone there's some special times like bright getting ready and when I do reporter it's where I go to the eighty five one point to um there are other instances where I totally need to knock out the background and still have a tack sharp image when I focus uh, with obviously low depth of field, shallow depth of field and, uh, use the one point two lenses shooting at one point for those of you that don't know where do you think the sharpest point of the lenses on an eighty five one two? Okay, well, I want you to think about it for a second and eighty five one two where's the sharpest point of this lens try to stops over open, wide open, okay, so you're looking at roughly one point eight, two point oh, okay, that is the sharpest part of this lens. So guess what that lens is meant to be shot pretty much wide open, not at f ate it's meant to be shot at one point eight two two point two, maybe two point five once in a while, three point two done I don't go beyond three point five on these lands is on the eighty five on the fifty I twenty four I don't go past three, two, three, five I'm done after that, so everything is at the lower end where it's the sharpest when you have a lens that is an f four to five point six lens, where is the sharpest pointing that lens to stop sober what's two stops over past five. Six f ate f eleven. There. It isthe. So at eleven. What in the hack and available like can you get unless you outside in broad daylight, in the reception hall at thirty two hundred. So you can't use that eleven if it's dark of his candle lit. So I used these guys during the reception at pretty much wide open.