It’s true: Gear doesn’t make the photographer. But it’s also true that the right gear can make your job a heckuva lot easier—and more fun! So after more than a decade amassing an arsenal of expensive DSLR cameras and lenses, our studio finally made the switch to an entirely new system. Mirrorless.
After one long travel month in 2017, my wife Eileen and I felt utterly pooped. Where was the old thrill we’d experienced as destination photographers? It was buried under a mountain of luggage and stress. We had to find a new packing system that brought joy back into our on-the-go lifestyle.Let’s look at our five essential categories we use to save space, the gear we bring and, finally, Peak Design’s new Travel Backpack that lets us access everything in one bag.
Photographers are well known for investing money in their toys. In fact, I would be willing to bet that many of us got started on this career path after realizing the cost of their new toys, and that we needed to charge people for pictures in order to just afford them. I am no exception to that. I love cameras, lights and new technology. We have so many options to choose from, but many that we crave are unnecessary. How do you choose the best tools to purchase? In this article, I break down my recommendations.
What’s your long game? It’s an important question, but one too few photographers ask themselves when starting a business. Over the seven years my wife Eileen and I have coached photographers to make their studios more profitable and manageable, we’ve noticed an alarming trend: Most photographers don’t have a plan.
I am a destination photographer. I photograph weddings, portraits and commercial gigs, and the one thing that is consistent across all genres is that I travel quite a long distance to most of my shoots. As a destination photographer, I’m constantly trying to simplify and protect my gear as I travel—it’s my goal to arrive at my destination (and back home again!) with all of my gear undamaged and my images intact.
If we are living in the Golden Age of mobile photography, 2018 has shaped up to be its best year yet, by far. New technology is turning photographers’ dreams into reality with gear that’s more advanced and less expensive than ever. Many of these items were just announced last month, and I can’t wait to share them with you. We’re talking pro quality that’s accessible to virtually anyone—and that fits in your backpack.
I covered the basics of beauty lighting several months ago. This month I take you on a deeper dive into beauty lighting. We’ll look at a more advanced setup I used recently to produce two killer looks for the same model. There are constants in beauty lighting: a strobe with a beauty dish acting as the keylight, a reflector or second strobe to fill in the shadows from the keylight, and classic clamshell lighting. Add a stellar creative team, additional accent lights to amp up the look and maybe some colored gels for that extra wow factor.
Yes, my name is Sal Cincotta and yes, I was the first photographer in the world to really put the Profoto A1 to the test in the field. And yes, I unabashedly LOVE this light. Not because someone has paid me to say it or paid for this post. It's…
As many of you already know, I am a huge fan of the Panasonic GH series, and have been onboard since the GH3. I love the quality and price point of the video that comes off these cameras. It’s incredible. The recently released GH5 is already a workhorse in our studio.
I love Flex lights. They are easy to use, very powerful, cost-effective, they throw great light and they’re extremely portable. They are not just for video. Read my article on commercial shoots in this issue, where I talk about how we used two of the 1x1 Flex Panels to light some food photography.