What’s in My Bag
I know there are photographers who will tell you that equipment doesn’t matter, but I’m guessing that most of them are people who don’t have good equipment and aren’t willing to invest in their business.
While I agree that 70 percent of great photography is a result of the photographer’s artistic vision and technical skills, but without the right tools there are times that achieving that vision is out of reach. A camera, lens and lighting are all tools of the master photographic craftsman. To get the job done right, you have to use the right tools.
You don’t see today’s home builders pull up to a job site with one hand saw. At most modern job sites you’ll find a table saw, a chop saw, a circular saw, a reciprocating saw, a compound miter saw and many others.
In the photography word different types of lenses are like different saws. There are telephoto lenses, wide-angle lenses, prime lenses, zoom lenses, fish eye lenses any many other specialty lenses.
With that said, here’s what’s in my bag:
Camera bodies:
- Canon R3
- Canon R5
- Canon R6
- Canon 5D Mark IV
- Lumix G9 MKII
Lenses:
- Canon 70-200 f2.8L
- Canon 16-35 f2.8 L
- Canon 24-105 f4 L
- Canon 50mm f1.4
- Sigma 120-300 f2.8 for both Canon and Nikon
- Sigma 50-100 f2
- Sigma 12-25
- Lumix 12-35 f2.8
Lighting:
- Godox v860 II (c) on camera flash (2)
- Godox AD200 off camera flash (3)
- Godox AD400 Pro
What I have is my main equipment, backup equipment and backup equipment for my backup equipment. I’ve got plenty of camera bodies and lenses so I can shoot stills and set some on tripods to capture video. I’ve got enough cameras so I can set up a remote camera in a unique place to get a photo that would be impossible to take unless it was remotely controlled (see the photo below)
Blue Angels Visit Fort Worth
I’m not the type to pass up a chance to photograph the Navy’s Blue Angels when they fly right over downtown Fort Worth.
The Navy’s flight demonstration squadron actually flew over McKinney, Dallas, Arlington and Fort Worth as part of their nationwide tour to honor those in the medical field who are on the front line fighting Covid 19. Part of the flight was to circle downtown Fort Worth before they landed at Fort Worth’s joint reserve base.
I intentionally picked a spot on the west side of downtown to take photos, since the planes would go over that side of town twice.
The jets came toward downtown from the south and banked sharply to make the turn on the west side of downtown.
It was a tight 360 degree circle all the way around the tall buildings of downtown. It probably took less than 30 seconds for them to make the circle of downtown and be off to the north so they could then turn back south to make their approach to Joint Reserve Base Carswell.
The photo at right are the planes as they make the turn around downtown. The photo at the top of the page is a tight shot when they were when they came back over me for the second time.
I shot all of these photos with my Nikon D500 and used a shutter speed of 1/2000 to make sure I stopped the action of the fast moving jets.
