Thoughts on Prepping Gear For A Shoot

A friend of mine who's just starting out as a photographer posted this video up the other day, which of course I had to click.  After watching it, a few thoughts popped up how he prepped his gear in relation to how I had learned it while working at MILK Studios.  There isn't a set standard for prepping and packing gear, though there were things that I would have done differently.

He cleaned his lenses with canned air.  Which...was amiss to me.  That stuff leaves residue on lenses.  Not something I want to clean off my lenses.  You'd use a rocket blower here. One blow to the side to remove any debris in the blower, then dust your lenses.

The best practice though is to brush off dust from your lenses, blow off debris, wipe, and blow again.  I highly suggest a lens pen because it cleans lenses perfectly usually.

While you're at it, give your cameras a sensor cleaning.  Most today have build in cleanings, though if  you had a particularly windy shoot last time or switched lenses a lot, it can't hurt.  Pop your camera into manual sensor cleaning mode, hold it upside down and over your head, then blow along your sensor and innards. Don't touch the sensor though..eep.  Good rule is to take a flash onto your camera body with a short lens, turn it out of focus, and shoot into paper a few times.  Take the photos into Lightroom/Capture One/Photoshop and drag your curve down to near black. You should be able to see the dust on your sensor.

If it's stubborn, get yourself some sensor swabs and sensor cleaner.  Youtube it and it'll save you the $65 it costs to clean the gunk out.

Then there are the 4 cameras with only 2 chargers.  Maybe he had his batteries charged up already.  With that many cameras (backup, a 2nd or 3rd shooter), you'd expect to see 8-12 batteries.  MILK would send out each camera with 3 batteries bare minimum.  Granted that was accounting for a grip.  With that many batteries, I'd expect to see 4 chargers + on the power strip. Time is a luxury and I want to get those camera batteries pumped and ready to go asap.

I'm sure he did this already, but something to do is clear your camera settings each time you shoot.  Nothing like going out and forgetting you're shooting at 1000 iso in daylight.

Mind you, this guy is happy the way he's doing things.  Who am I to say anything?  It works, it works.  That's all that matters.  It's interesting to see how a few months working in a digital camera preparation department changes how you set up for a shoot.