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Camera and Lighting Gear on Location

Lesson 2 from: Bring Light to Street Photography

Joe McNally

Camera and Lighting Gear on Location

Lesson 2 from: Bring Light to Street Photography

Joe McNally

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Lesson Info

2. Camera and Lighting Gear on Location

Lesson Info

Camera and Lighting Gear on Location

for a night like tonight out in New York City. Important. You probably don't want to bring the whole kitchen sink right. You want to stay light Fast Mobile. This is running gun photography were working on the streets of New York. We cannot put sticks down, so it doesn't means we can't like camp out. We can't put a tripod down, can put light stands up. We have to stay mobile. Hence it relates directly to what I said earlier. You need help, and my Cali, known as Callie, is going to be with me on the streets of New York. He's going to be the shepherd of the gear. He's gonna be kind of talking to me about, like stuff that he's thinking about, like what's happening in the background, things I might not be seeing because I'm vectored into the lens. I'm relating to the talent, so he's looking around and he's often times will say to me like, What about that? Or, you know, maybe we should move down the block or something like that or all those kinds of things, and Kallis got a really good I. So...

we're really blessed to have him at the studio and, uh, thanks. Yeah. Welcome to New York way talk like they're talking like this, Um, anyone. So gear our principal camera tonight. The one that we're gonna be used is a Nikon D five, and we're gonna be using pretty fast glass and reason being, we want to manage our depth of field because backgrounds can get very cluttered, very bright. Also, logos are a big issue now in this highly trademark society of ours. You don't want somebody coming after you for a picture that you shot like, Well, my logos in the background there also remember, graphically speaking, if you're looking at Times Square, tons of logos type can hijack your frame, right? You want to look at the human being Who's the star of the show, who's close the lens. And if you have, you know, I know Walgreens coming out of their head that could hijack the whole photograph. And the person who's viewing the photograph, I goes there because it's gonna be Neon is going to be brightly lit, is gonna have a design element, all that sort of stuff. I'm talking really fast, but that's okay. We're in the or your New York, you know? All right, so here, let's let's pull some out. Will be on rollers tonight. These air think tank rollers. We take him on the airplane and we take him on the streets. Believe it or not, this is the way we pack. We don't use the dividers. We use these Velcro wraps, and we kind of nestle everything together. We're going to be five. We have a backup D five, right, cause if that d five breaks, which would take a lot to break a d five, but I I'm capable of it. Trust me. Uh, you have to have a backup camera. Because if you have one camera and it breaks, you're no longer a photographer. Pretty simple. Ah, What else? Back up. Batteries? Yeah, Back of batteries. We keep in here, back up cards. Um, way have our transmitters for our flashes that we keep it here. So it's ah, mixture, W R r 10 and a wr a 10 in the WR A 10 part of it fits right into your 10 pin in your camera. And this is how we control of our flashes. That little thing there is the That's the keys to the kingdom. It's this transceiver that is your link to your flash is very important. One of the things that we've kind of graduated on technology wise. Obviously, we're in the realm of radio T tl photography radio T tl slash controlling T T L exposure dictating to the flashes via radio waves instead of optical pulses, which is where we were in previous technology, which is still completely valid. But on the streets of New York at night, with cars coming by and sirens and fire engines, optical pulses can get confused. Radio is more reliable. Ah, a lot of long lens stuff tonight. Yeah, we have. Ah, long lens for is a 72 200. If I was going to go out in New York tonight with one lens and one lens only it would be this guy. The 72 200 F 2.8 super sharp, fast for its length, to be sure, and to me, the city is an environment that I want to stack up. It's got lots of urban kind of graphics, windows and rectilinear buildings, and I'm also doing portraiture, so I want to get into my subject And also I want to throw the background out of focus. Easier to do with a long lens. So if I had a just say the heck with everything else, I'm gonna go out there with one lens 72 200 would be the way to go for me. And we also have with us a couple of fast primes, some wide primes, like a 24 F two. I believe we might have the 35. 1. actually is 24 1.4. Sorry. Misspoke. 24 1.4. Super fast lens. Um, 28 we have right here. We got 28 as well, so that's crucial. That wide open f stop, even with a wide look at things will throw your background out of focus. Pretty helpful. All right, that's the camera gear. Okay, One case camera gear. All right, so let's close that up and we'll switch off now, in this, you know, quote unquote lighting case. We do have one last piece of glass, and it's a monster. Um, I have to admit it. It's 200 millimeter F two. Probably the sharpest telephoto I've ever used. Love this lands. It's pretty exotic because that that extra f stop getting two F two is worth a few 1000 bucks. It's an expensive lens, but on the streets of New York, if you really go in on somebody and throw that background into this just visual cacophony of all this out of focus stuff, you know this lens is an amazing tool. So that's in the lighting case. Don't know if we'll get to it tonight, but it's always nice to have it. All right. Lighting. Get right into it. So tonight, with our flashes, we're gonna be using the SB five Thousands once again to reiterate, were using radio. So those transmitters of Strand Seaver's you saw us pullout earlier. Um, we'll talk to these guys and work seamlessly. Yeah. No, it's actually it's the best kind of flash system I think I've ever used. I'm thrilled with, uh the way the radio T TL system is working now gives me a really good handle. And, you know, we might be down near Times Square, some really hectic place, and you're worried about everything, right? You worry about your talents, your word about security. We're looking around like this. The last thing you want to worry about is my gear dependable, You know, as are the flash is working, you know that. You know, that just is going to kill your head. So So I feel good about the system we're going out with Is all gonna be speed lights again, conforming to the theme of the night. Really, which is running gun, Move fast travel light and try to get some nice looking pictures in an off the cuff Informal way. One very crucial thing that will be deployed tonight. Our jails for the flashes got two cases of them. One is a color correction case. The other is our theatrical gels. You know, neon in New York comes in all sorts of colors. So we're pretty prepared for that toe, match it or run counter to it, or warm a scene up, or maybe even correct. Because, you know, the really zooming aspects of neon and led is in New York. Can just, you know, Dr Camera white balance crazy. That's going to be something we're gonna have to manage tonight. I probably will start with an auto white balance, but I'm gonna move around a great deal and go into fixed white balance is an experiment. The key, I think, for lights that you apply that you bring into an urban lit environment is experimentation. Flexibility? Now, what's the light? Gonna go on? Can't go on a stand. We are not permitted for a stand. So we're gonna work with a boom pole, right? And this we call it a Justin Clampetts a man photo 1 75 f A little cold shoe. We throw tape on it because we're gonna be moving pretty fast, and And this this joint up here will get stressed, so we kind of tape it up, make sure we're good to go. And it's a really handy clamp. This gives us a lot of reach those, you know, here and there. Probably 10 12 feet. If you're models on the street and say you want them to move backwards forwards. You want them to turn this way? That way we can pivot the light really quickly. We don't have to take the time to take the tripod up and off the street or a C stand. Good lord. You know, pulling that around, you don't want anybody tripping on your lights. So you want to just stay within yourself? Because the last thing you need is some sort of complaints or issue on the streets of New York. So we got we got light shapers. All right, Um, start pretty basic. I can show you. This guy tried and true. Use them all the time. It's called a try. Flip kits. You know, this type of thing. I take this reflective material off which I can now use it in bounce mode or things like that. It also underneath has a diffuser type of thing so I can fire a light through it again. You saw it, you know, comes in a pretty small case. It wraps itself up really well. Handy location, tool. Show us. This is speed like to box. This is a great little speed light, light shaper, you know, um, soft box. Very stuff. Herbal Got an interior diffuser. The really cool thing is that it's got on the for its front piece. Right? As you can imagine, it's got the diffuser in here. It's got a diffuser that would go over the front like this, but like, it's bigger brothers, you know, this is a very junior junior soft box, but like it's bigger brothers. It's also got the additional kind of wonderful thing oven additional measure of control, which is a fabric egg crate so that really controls the flow of the light. So if you want to isolate so you want to do, you know tough guy lights. You know you have some character on the streets of New York and you want to isolate him or her, you know, with your light and don't want it spilling all over the place. The fabric grid is very, very handy, so that's a very complete and small light shaper that you can stuff in your bag. Lastly, are easy box here. This is basically a bigger version of that Pretty straightforward, you know, softens light in here, softens it again Here. This also has a fabric grid so you can control the flow of light. It's easy to manipulate on the top of that boom pole. And, you know, uh, we should be good to go with this rig. We should be able tow a light, an effective portrait, because you don't want to shortchange yourself. You don't take so little gear that you feel compromised, but also will be able to be mobile and, uh, fluid in r response because things could change very rapidly. And who knows, somebody might come along and say, No, you can't be here. You gotta move. All right. Boom, boom, boom! And we're gone.

Ratings and Reviews

Sevana
 

It's reeeeeally a fabulous course to lead me through the entire photo shooting process, getting to know how a professional team operate and especially how the photographer prepare for and sort of work like a director to make things done. Great course! I'd love to share it with my friends~~

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