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I get a lot of questions asking about what equipment I take with me on a typical photo assignment. Here’s a quick rundown:

Lowepro CompuTrekker AW Backpack
• 15 inch Apple Macbook Pro Notebook
• Nikon D700 DSLR
• Nikon D300 DSLR
• Nikon 14-24mm f/2.8 Lens
• (2x) Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 Lens
• Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 VR Lens
• Nikon 24mm f/2.8 Prime Lens
• Nikon 35mm f/2.0D Prime Lens
• Nikon 50mm f/1.4G Prime Lens
• (2x) Nikon SB-900 Speedlights
• (6x) Sandisk 16gb Memory Cards
• Batteries, filters, light modifiers, gum and junk…

Tripod Case
• (2x) Paul C. Buff Light Stands
• Portable Light Stand For Speedlights
• Westcott Apollo Softbox For Speedlights
• Paul C. Buff Giant Softbox
• Paul C. Buff Large Softbox
• (4x) PocketWizards Plus II Transmitters

JTL Case
• Alienbee B800 Studio Strobe
• Alienbee B1600 Studio Strobe
• (2x) Nikon SB-800 Speedlights
• RadioPopper PX Wireless Transmitters and Receivers
• Various cables, chargers, brackets, adapters and light modifiers

Not Pictured
• Paul C. Buff Vagabond II AC Power Pack
• BRNO BaLens
• Digital Calibration Target
• Nikon F100 Film Camera
• Holga Toy Camera
• Kodak 400VC 135 Film
• Kodak bw400cn 135 Film
• Kodak e100vs 120 Slide Film

Now that’s a lot of stuff! I typically prepare for each job and add or remove certain items as I see fit. I can do without the laptop for many assignments as well as a lot of the lighting gear and even my film stuff. That really helps to scale down things.

So hopefully that answers some of your questions.

Enjoy!
~Mike

I wanted to go over my recent inLIGHTin Workshop for today’s Friday Night Lights segment.

I gave an inLIGHTin Workshop to about a dozen photographers over at the iPrintFromHome.com Headquarters over on Niagara Falls Blvd. For those local to Buffalo… did you know that we have an awesome photo lab right in our backyard?

So we started at 6pm and went a little over three hours! This workshop was all about lighting. We talked about everything from free and available light, to continuous light, speedlights (on and off camera) and ended up on studio strobes… There was A LOT of content and could have easily spent an entire day talking about things…

I had a great time and wanted to thank everyone for attending. I hope to see you at other workshops of mine and as always, call or email whenever if you have any questions guys!

Here are some pics from the workshop that my assistant, Martha, shot during the workshop:

Thanks to the George and Sarah over at the iPrintFromHome.com family for letting us use their space.

Today’s Friday Night Lights article is all about taking your studio strobes outside to add some extra oomph to your images. When you know how to control and modify the light around you then you start to “make” your images rather than simply “taking” them…

Here is a YouTube video that I posted on the subject:

For this shoot I used an Alienbee AB1600 studio strobe powered by a Paul C Buff Vagabond power pack. Pocket Wizards were used as my wireless triggering device and was shooting with my Nikon D700.

Setup for this shoot typically involves me setting my camera to Manual mode and then dialing in my shutter speed to what the camera’s particular sync speed (check your camera’s manual for what your particular sync speed is since most are different – usually 1/200″ is a safe bet but this can vary) . From there, I set my aperture so that I can take a nice photo of the ambient light with the flash excluded. I want to preserve the ambient light, especially the clouds and sky colors, so this is the most important step!

Once I have my settings dialed in and I take a picture (still without my flash firing) I should get beautiful sky detail with my subject being a silhouette. This is where the flash comes in. I position the flash so that it will hit the subject and do a test shot… If my subject is blown out then I will either:
a) dial down the power of the studio strobe
or
b.) move the strobe further back from the subject
or
c.) a combination of the two

Obviously, I do the opposite measures if the subject is too dark. You could use a light meter but in the digital world, you could easily just take a shot and view the back of the LCD to check exposure, histogram and the angle of the light. Modify as needed!

Hope that helps and I will talk to you on Monday.