location photography gear: camera bag
Last week I introduced our standard location photography gear setup. We’ll be looking at different bags week by week and today it’s the heart of the business, the camera bag.
You won’t find the latest, trendiest equipment necessarily. This is what we’ve amassed over years in the business and what has produced a good return on investment for our commercial studio. We generally make equipment purchases at year end based on profitability and the guidance of our accountant.
Let’s take a look inside:
In the main compartment:
Cameras:
Canon 5D
Canon 20D (backup - it has little resale value but still does a nice job)
*The cameras are marked “A” and “C” so we can distinguish them from other cameras.
Lenses:
Canon 17-40mm f4 L
Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 (a favorite)
Canon 70-200mm f4 L (non-IS since we’re usually on a tripod)
Canon 50mm f1.8
Canon 100mm f2.8 macro (nice for portraits and closeup details of product)
Canon 28-105mm f3.5-4.5 (for backup over the normal range, not a great lens but works well at f8-11)
Strobe:
Canon 430EX (we rarely use camera mounted strobes for our business - it’s been used more to trigger slaves than light images!)
Cords:
2 x 4 ft. USB cords for camera / computer tethering
2 x 10 ft. USB 2.0 extension
1 x 16 ft. USB 2.0 repeater extension
Wireless Remotes:
3 x Quantum Radio Slave 4i Receivers
2 x Quantum Radio Slave 4i Transmitters
Light Meter:
Minolta Flash Meter IV
Misc:
Waterproof Card Holder with CF cards
2 x Bogen Tripod Adapters
In the front and back compartments:
Camera Manuals for 5D, 20D (yes, we refer to them on occasion)
Sensor Swab cleaning kit with paddles for both 5D and 20D
Yet another tripod adapter
Black tape, pens, utility knife, Leatherman multi-purpose tool
Color correction gels for small strobe
Polarizer lenses
Model and property releases
The right pocket contains computer stuff:
Firewire 120GB Pocket Drive for immediate file backup at job site
Apple Computer AC Adapter
Firewire Sandisk CF Card Reader (in case internal PCMCIA computer card reader fails)
The left pocket contains:
Handful of AA and 9 volt batteries (there are more batteries in grip kit and strobe case)
2 x camera batteries * the 5D and 20D take the same battery. Fully charged batteries have the cover on them, spent batteries are stored with no cover. If we’re shooting at a location with AC power we instinctively keep a battery charger and camera battery plugged in during the shoot - “DPB” (double paranoia backup)
That’s it for the camera bag, let me know if you have any questions on what you see! And, as always, if you’re looking to round out your own camera bag it does help prophotolife if you choose to Shop Calumet Photographic - It’s Where the Pros Go.
Interesting choice on the 50 f1.8, how come you go for that over the 50 f1.4?
One extra item I like to keep in my bag is a small bubble level that fits on the hot shoe. I’m always crooked!
Great assortment, but another thing you may want would be some rain covers for both cameras.
Also, many thanks for all of the great posts.
question i see you carry a sensor swab in kit…now we own a panasonic lumix dmc-fz30,nikon d70,and canon rebel xsi….everyone and i mean everyone has told us “DO NOT CLEAN SENSOR”..LOL take it in to shop for cleaning,is there a safe ,proper way to clean it,cause im tired of removing junk from pics…
Pretty much all there! Maybe if it fits a small collapsible reflector incase someone forgot to pack one!
Another good thing to have is a white balance card set, or an expodisc which does the same but directly mounted on the lens, White balancing is a must and something to be really careful about, can’t always rely on the auto white balance the camera reads, when shooting directly on JEPG format its completely necessary to be accurate since the color temperature cant be optimized later in post processing, When shooting Raw, white balancing should be almost accurate and using the auto white balance is acceptable, when having a mixture of temperatures in light conditions it should be better to manually set it, though it still can be managed in post processing, it is always better to have it almost accurate so the post processing time doesn’t extend in long hours of work.
Remember to always have some business cards in your bag, they can sometimes easily fly and there is never one to many chances for the future!
Hey Jon, aside from sporting events and news, do you know of any photographers that shoot in the rain? My experiences are that if the shoot is outdoors and it rains the shoot is cancelled until the next day.
Great post, only thing I would add is a roll of gaffers tape, man that stuff has saved me so many times!
I second Jeff’s recommendation. Duct tape - no, Gaffer tape - yes! How about a 18% grey microfiber cleaning cloth?
I totally agree on the gaffer tape, it’s an essential.It gets carried along in our rolling grip kit, along with a few other kinds of tape.
And thanks for the reminder of a cleaning cloth. I toted a favorite Kodak cloth for years and it’s disappeared!
What is the big difference between gaffers tape and duct tape…why is gaffers used more in production and what is the best ways to use both…can u help us out…
Simba
Can u give a example templete of ur model and equipment release..
Simba
Gaffer tape is usually black (but we also use white and gray), it’s made of cloth, tears easily and leaves less sticky residue when pulled off, making it ideal for photo/film/video use.
Duct tape is much less expensive and more readily available. It is more plastic / stretchy, doesn’t tear as cleanly or easily and can melt when subjected to the really high heat of lamps and bulbs. For some uses you can get away with the inexpensive duct tape but the gaffers sure comes in handy.
I’ll include our model and property releases in an upcoming post!
Just wondered what kind of a bag you recommend? I’m in search of a new one…and there are just too many to choose from. One that fits 2 DSLRs and a few lenses…Thanks for any suggestions!
Hi Kari, you’ve got me on this one! To be honest, I only shop for a camera bag about once every ten years and am not up to date on what’s being offered. I really like to go to the local dealer for this purchase, if I can, to try the bag out. They’ve let me stuff the bag with similar items to my own just to see how it would work out.
I looked on Calumet Photo’s site really quick and saw that a search on camera bags returned over 900 items! My favorite brands are LowePro and Tamrac…they each had almost 300 bags apiece so I can see why you’re overwhelmed. The best I can offer is that the two aforementioned brands have always been great for me.
It also depends on how you’ll be using the bag. For action photography I use a photo backpack to minimize the feeling of weight but access to equipment isn’t as quick. For normal commercial assignments it’s the usual over the shoulder bag. I’ve seen that wedding photographers sometimes favor a bag that attaches around the waist so they can quickly open the top and access cameras and lenses more conveniently.
Let me know what / if you do finally decide on something and how you came to the decision.
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