Having spent the years between 1995 and 2005 photographing hundreds of rock and roll bands with a point and shoot film camera, I completely understand that it’s the photographer that makes the photo and not the gear. When it comes to weddings, however, having a solid camera body can be a lifesaver, especially when the rules at the church call for no flash, and the place is a dark cavernous room lit only by candles. I chose to shoot Nikon because I knew I could rely on its autofocus system and the high ISO is nearly noise free. To date I haven’t shot a single ceremony with flash, and hopefully I will never have to. Anyway, here’s the latest edition of What’s In My Bag? Just in case you wanted to know.

THE CAMERA BODIES

Nikon D3s – I don’t think anyone can argue that this is the Cadillac of camera gear. When I first got into digital photography, my own wedding photographer, Kristin Reimer, had just upgraded from the D2 series to the new D3 and couldn’t stop raving about it. I already owned the D700, which was an amazing camera in its own right (borrowing a sensor directly from the D3), but I pined for the double card slots, rugged exterior and 100% viewfinder. When Nikon announced that the new D3s could shoot at 6400 ISO with almost zero noise, I decided that I had to own it. I saved every penny I earned from my first year in business and dropped every cent of it on this bad boy. Since then I have absolutely zero regrets. This camera is bomb proof, fits perfectly in my large hands, and creates 12 megapixel files that are to die for. I realize that the D3s is an extravagant camera, but as a professional, I really can’t imaging owning anything else. The insurance from the double card slots alone is worth the price of admission, and the flawless autofocus just can’t be topped.

Nikon D700 – The D700 is pretty much the reason why I switched to Nikon. I spent years waiting for Canon to release a new version of its classic 5D camera. I ignored the Nikon fanboys that were calling the D3 and D700 the greatest wedding cameras available. But when the 5DMKII finally came out, I was seriously saddened by its miserable ability to capture focus in less than stellar light. Here I was calling myself a low-light event photographer and I could barely focus on anything in a dark room. I sold everything and bought the D700. Since then I’ve been sold on the Nikon system, and the D700 as been my MVP. With the MB-D10 Multi Power Battery Pack grip attached, I use this interchangeably with the D3s and hardly know the difference. The ISO is clean up to about 3200 and the autofocus works magic in the most dreary reception situations, not to mention rock & roll concerts.

Nikon D90 – The D90 was my original backup to the D700. It was the first Nikon camera (and I’m pretty sure the first ever DSLR) with video capabilities, but I wouldn’t go around bragging about it. I can barely get the video to work. The camera, however, is perfect for our photobooth. I usually have this mounted onto an Alien Bee ring light with a moon unit. The whole kit sits on a Manfrotto video pan head attached to a rock solid tripod. At f/8 with the kit lens attached, the D90 is the perfect photobooth camera. I probably wouldn’t want to shoot a ceremony at 1600 ISO with it, but it is a more than capable backup to my backup.

Nikon F 100 – I won’t lie, I’m a giant geek for film. While I don’t have the guts to shoot an entire wedding with it (unless I was going completely traditional), I often pull this bad boy out and blow off a roll between portraits or in addition to my digital photos. I love the killer black & white shots it produces and the fact that it works with all of my modern lenses. If I ever break down and build a dark room in my basement, the F100 is going to get a ton more use.

Lomography LC-A – When I’m truly feeling inspired I break out my Lomo. This is a fancy (and 35mm) version of the classic Holga. I’m sure I’m going to get a lot of heat from purists, but this is a really expensive point-and-shoot camera that takes photos similar to the plastic cameras sold by Urban Outfitters. The good thing about the Lomo is that you aren’t going to lose tons of money on rolls of film that were destroyed by light leaks. I love the fact that this camera slows me down and makes me think before I click on the shutter. I have to make sure that I’m the proper distance from the subject in order to focus properly, and the viewfinder is so small that I have to be really careful when I compose. I would kill for the chance to shoot an entire engagement session with my Lomo.

About a three years ago, I took a good look at my disaster plan, and it wasn’t very pretty. I was basically storing all my photos on a Western Digital hard drive and my music on another. Every few months I had to add another drive, so I had this huge daisy chain of hard drives tethered behind my computer. It was a complete mess.

When I started shooting events full time I realized that I had to have a proper backup system in case something horrible happened to my data. Ever a nervous Nelly, I started looking at options.

After sorting through article after article about RAID drives, DVD burning, off-site storage, and a million other “solutions,” I settled on the much hyped DROBO from Data Robotics as my main drive.

The machine is simple. It looks like a small beer cooler, but inside it has four bays that fit normal external SATA drives. You feed it as many as you want and the DROBO spreads your data redundantly over the different drives. Basically, if one drive fails you can swap it out and no data is lost. The firewire 800 connection also means that I can work directly off the DROBO without any hiccups in transfer speed. DROBO constantly lets me know what my space size is, the health of my drives, and how close I am to reaching capacity. When I swap a drive it takes about 24-hours to redistribute my data, but I can work of the system while it’s working.

It’s been up and running for about two years now and I haven’t had a single problem. However, it does have a few quirks. The power cable is a little loose and can fall out if you move the drive even a little bit. That’s not too much of a problem since I don’t drag the heavy sucker around much. It also makes you choose the size of your partition when you initialize the machine. So if you choose a smaller size of say 2 TB, like I did, you have to create a new drive on your desktop every time I fill it up with 2 TB worth of data. I’ve got 4 TB in DROBO right now and have to have two partitions. I use one for music and one for photos. It’s not a problem, but could be a nuisance if you choose a lower sized partition and chew through a lot of drive space.

Also, you have to realize that if you feed it 4 TB drives, you only get about 2.3 TB of usable drive space, because everything is duplicated for security. The initial investment is also high. The unit cost me about $400 and that’s without the drives. Luckily, you can buy the cheapest ones out there since you can always swap them out. Personally, I’m a fan of the Western Digital Caviar Green drives.

Now that’s just Stage I of my back up system. I told you I was a little insane. The extra drives I have left over from my DROBO go into a Thermaltake BlacX eSATA USB Docking Station that I use for my Apple Time Machine. The dock looks like an old Super NES and is connected via USB 2.0. I don’t really need speed for Time Machine since it just runs in the background. I use it to protect my data from accidental loss of data. For example, if my Lightrooom database gets corrupted, I can just go into Time Machine and find a version from a few days back and restore it. It works like a charm for recently corrupted or lost files.

Finally, I needed a backup solution that’s located off site. Obviously, the worse possible situation is that my place burns down and I lose everything. I used to back up everything to little WD Passport drives and move them off site once a month, but that got expensive and I’d still lose the most recent data.

After a bit of research, I stumbled on BackBlaze, a cloud back-up service that runs in the background and uploads all new data up to its server. The best part? It’s only $50 a year. New data is uploaded instantaneously and you can access it on their server any time you want. If something bad happens, you can download the data as a ZIP file or pay a fee to have it sent to you on DVDs or on a hard drive. The only problem is the initial upload. When I first signed up for the free trial I was using Verizon DSL which barely uploaded at 1MBPS. According to BackBlaze it would take me approximately 266 days to get all my data onto its server. I bit the bullet and switched to Verizon Fios and was able to get all my data to the cloud in about 15 days. Keep in mind, we’re talking about 3TB of data here. It won’t take that long with smaller batches and I’m sure cable connections are just as fast.

So there you have it. My insanely intricate, but not very complicated back up setup. I can confidently guarantee that I won’t lose a client’s data and I have the peace of mind that my music collection will never vanish. At that security is worth any cost.

As an avid gear nut, I’ve always agreed with the expression “Go Big or Go Home.” That holds true for televisions and tattoos, but for equipment used in a business the expression that fits a bit better is “Go as big as you can get to do the job right.” I’m sure that’s not proper English, but it should make sense. If you can get a photo shoot done right with a Canon 40D and a Tamron lens, then that’s what you should buy until a job calls for something bigger. Then you should rent until you can afford the higher end equipment.

I spend years shooting portraits and events with the 40D and a Tamron f/2.8 lens and took great photos that clients loved. As I started shooting more events in lower light, I switched to Nikon and bought faster glass. I followed a well thought out equipment upgrade path and sold all my equipment for as much as I could to recoup the cost.

Rather than jump to the top of the line lighting gear, Dave chose to invest in Alien Bees to test the waters and see how much he could accomplish at a lower price point. It looks like he’s going to dive into the deep end eventually, but he had pre-thought how much he could get for the ABs if he had to resell them and what kind of loss he would get hit with. Turns out it wouldn’t be too bad.

I’m a huge fan of Alien Bees and its parent company/owner Paul C. Buff both because Paul produces really good quality equipment at a low price point, but also because the company seems to embody the Do It Yourself ethos that I was brought up with. Could I afford better lighting? Probably, but I don’t need it.

A few weeks back, while I was photographing a certain ex-president, I got pretty self conscious about the bright orange Alien Bees that were flanking the subject. I always thought they made great conversation pieces when shooting weddings or portraits, but I was nervous that uber important people would take them for toys. The feeling passed pretty when I nailed the shots and got the thumbs up from the client, but I couldn’t help considering upgrading them to something more professional looking. Then I realized that no one could actually see them behind the umbrellas and I was being silly. For the time being I’m sticking with Alien Bees, and if I need something bigger I’m renting it for the day.

After every shoot, I empty out my Lowepro Roller 1, gather all the batteries for recharging, check lenses and cameras for damage, and make sure I didn’t lose anything. I was really bored today, so I decided to take one of those fancy gear photos. Turns out, my stuff makes a perfect square.

Here’s what’s in my main bag:

• Nikon D700 with battery grip
• Nikon D90 (back-up)
• Nikon F-100 (I still shoot film)
• SB-800 strobe
• SB-900 strobe
• SD9 battery pack
• Nikkor 70–200mm f/2.8 VRII
• Nikkor 24–70mm f/2.8
• Nikkor 50mm f/1.8
• Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro
• Lomo LC+A
• Canon HF-200 camcorder
• Sekonic light meter
• flash to camera cord
• random defusers, memory cards, wires, and light hoods

Everything fits snug as a rug in my roller suitcase (one of the best purchases I ever made). This is my basic event and wedding rig that comes with me whenever I have a long shoot. If I ever get around to it, I’ll post my smaller bags for concerts and short events, and maybe my lighting gear if I’m feeling particularly frisky.

For the last year, I’ve been switching between my Canon 24-70mm 2.8L and Tamron 17-50mm 2.8 to capture wide angles and some zoom shots, but the only long lens I have is an ultra-slow Tamron super zoom. For financial reasons, I was torn between this lens and the new Tamron 70-200mm, but the IS put this one over the top. I’ve been doing a lot more photography of people at podiums from a distance and I need the extra few stops of protection to avoid camera shake.

I’m taking the new lens out to Centralia this weekend to see what it can do. Barring rain or accidental death, I’ll post photos on Monday.

I have a Holga that I don’t play with enough. That should change soon enough. I recently bought a great book called “Plastic Cameras” by Michelle Bates that will hopefully inspire me. I’ll have a review up soon. This shot was taken in Philadelphia about a year ago.

Figured I’d kick off this blog with some pretty cool news. According to their PR people, The White Stripes have teamed up with camera manufacturers Lomography to produce two completely custom cameras; the ‘Jack’ Holga and the ‘Meg’ Diana+. The cameras are specially designed in conjunction with the band and will be available in both the U.S and U.K from www.whitestripes.com. These unique cameras go on sale at noon (EST) Monday, October 15th.

Here’s the scoop on the two models

‘Meg’ Diana+ Multi Function All-Plastic Camera:
Dating back to the 1960s, the all-plastic Diana camera is a cult legend, famous for its dreamy, radiant and lo-fi images. This limited edition Diana+ camera’s faithful reproduction has been renamed ‘MEG’, features customized packaging and printed camera logos and comes with red and white ring gels for the flash. Package includes: Diana+ camera,’ Nobody Knows How To Talk To Children’ ring flash and peppermint film mask filter, Diana Vignettes photo book and multilingual instruction manual. The camera uses all varieties of medium format 120 film.

‘Jack’ Holga Flash Camera Starter Kit:
Created in the 1980s the Holga is an all-plastic icon of camera design. It produces totally unique images, dripping with color and contrast. This limited edition Holga color flash camera has been renamed ‘JACK’ and features customized packaging and printed camera logos and comes with three lens filters: red, clear and peppermint. Package includes: Holga Color Flash Camera with red and clear color flash gels, a set of three custom filters, fisheye lens, The World through a Plastic Lens photo book, one 120 film roll, two “AA” batteries, editorial poster, and multilingual instruction manual. The camera uses all varieties of medium format 120 film.

Can’t wait to play with the Diana model, but the price might be a bit steep for plastic camera fans. Both models cost $180 separately.