Now that it's too late to add or subtract gear, what did I end up packing?

from "Hairspray" at Zach Theatre.

Unless you are much, much more brilliant than I'll ever be the process of packing seems always to be fraught with regrets and misgivings. I wish I could be a modern photographer (equipment wise) but have the travel services of the golden age of travel, when people could travel with giant "steamer" trunks and be followed through train stations and airports by legions of baggage handlers. If that were the case I'd take along everything photographic that I own in case I had a passing whim to pull some esoteric lens out of its velvet lined case and use it once or twice. Sadly, this is a possibility only for those with deeper pockets than mines, in current times.

After using the G9s for the past two weeks, on a daily basis, over and over again, it was a foregone conclusion that I would be taking them as my primary shooting cameras. There was a bit of hesitation last night as I looked fondly at the GH5S and it's lovely color palette but my newly acquired, intimate knowledge of the G9s pushed them to the front of the line. And, of course, batteries....

Now, here is where you'll probably disagree with me but I decided to leave the Olympus 40-150mm f2.8 at home. It was a tradeoff between how much I could carry and how much use I thought I might get out of the longer selection of focal lengths. I know, I know, it's an exquisite lens and I'll regret not having it at some point but there are times I also regret not having a 100 megapixel Phase One system as well.  I'm sure I'll get over it....

Since I forfeited the longer focal lengths that helped me get off the fence on my primary zoom lens. I decided on the Olympus 12-100mm f4.0 Pro over the Panasonic/Leica 12-60mm f2.8-4.0 because the Olympus lens gives me an extra 40mm of reach, is a known super star and has proven itself to me in many more situations than I've been able to cover with the Panasonic/Leica. The new guy gets left behind until it shows me some aspect where it's the better choice. The one thing that kept the new lens in the running was the lower weight...

Once those decisions were made everything else fell into place. I needed the Panasonic 8-18mm because wide is good for landscape stuff and near/far effects. 

After I pulled in the heavy hitters I added a few lenses for play. My choices for this adventure? The Sigma 30mm f1.4 and the Panasonic 42.5mm f1.7 (small, light and dual I.S.+ sharp) and finally, the Sigma 60mm f2.8 DN. 

So, there you have it. Lenses for personal work that fit in a small bag and won't tweak my back. When you get tired and haven't slept in a while every pound makes a difference. Go lighter to go further.

I'm happy with my choices and writing about them allowed me to while away the waiting time. Now it's time to check a bag. Happy days!

Ah. The JF"catch-22". Making waiting akin to punishment.

I hate waiting but I hate being late even worse. It's one of those personality quirks. So, I got to the Austin airport and approached a SkyCap to curb check my luggage (I'm heading to Iceland today) and get everything squared away.

The guy behind the counter gave me the sad news. Since my layover exceeded six hours in JFK he could only check the bags to there. They'd have to be collected in baggage claim, re-checked for my next flight, and I'd have to go back through security again. No problem.

But when I got to NY I asked an agent to check my bags and he informed me that they have no way to store baggage for longer than..... six hours....and that I would have to wait from 12:30pm till 3:05pm before I could check my (one) bag. I'd have to drag my suitcase around with me until then.

But where's the Catch-22? Well, all the seating and good food is inside the security perimeter but until you check your checked luggage you can't go through security. But all the seating and decent food is inside the security zone/departure area and you can't go through there until you check your bags and we're right back to the six hour exclusion period.

In 25 minutes I'll (theoretically) be able to check in the bag and proceed to the TSA check point.

It's gray, cold and murky in NYC. Instead of standing in a giant, crowded ticketing area (absolutely bereft of seats) I decided to take the Air Trans tour of the entire airport. I dragged the bag along and got on the Air Trans, which is mostly intended to take travelers to connecting terminals. Pretty bleak for tourism, but then airport tourism was never high on my bucket list.

I think from now on I'll try to make my own travel arrangements rather than leaving it up to someone else. After two weeks of tight schedules and (Yikes) eighteen flights across the Southeast U.S. my tolerance for schedule slop is pretty minuscule.

Looking for a little silver lining, I did bring along the cookies they gave me on my last flight. I think I'll eat them now......

And, by the way, today is my birthday. Happy to have made it to 63 and hoping to get a few more good decades in..... I'd like to end up setting the record for the oldest working photographer. But not if I have to spend those decades waiting to check my luggage....

Kirk finds out just how much impact it takes to kill a Godox AD200.....

Well. I'm not as smart as I thought I was and now I've gone and destroyed one of my favorite flashes. I had my Godox AD 200 attached to a 2x3 foot softbox and the assemblage was sitting on top of a light stand, about ten feet above the ground. We were in an equipment yard using giant earth movers as backgrounds for a series of environmental portraits.

There was a very slight breeze so I made sure to weight the light stand with something heavy. I always bring along a bungee cord in my light case so I used my Think Tank camera backpack as a sandbag. I figured the 15 -20 pounds would make a good anchor; a hedge against the random wind gust.

I was also using a 4x4 foot diffuser to keep direct sun off my subjects. That was weighted down with a 30 pound steel pipe. It wasn't going anywhere. But I missed my guess with the lighting unit's safety.

Of course accidents always seem to happen in slow motion if you aren't fast enough to get to the spot and grab the light stand before it hits the ground...

I was too far away when I noticed it's acceleration toward hard dirt covered in more powdery dirt. The light hit squarely on the back end where the little control panel lived. It's a spider web cracked piece of dead plastic now. Amazingly, the flash still worked and we used it for another 400 or 500 images before I was finished at the location. I tested the light today and it still fires and still receives commands and triggering signals from the remote in the hot shoe. I just can't use it without the remote.

Sending it back to the manufacturer for repairs probably makes no sense at all since I'd have to pay shipping in two directions and it will probably take a lot of time to get everything done and turned around.  I guess I'll hop online when I get back in town and get another one. They pack down well and put out enough power to go toe to toe with the full sun. They also do HSS with the remote and my Panasonic cameras. That's a nice feature to have.

Maybe they'll have a sale....... just a bit of wishful thinking.....

Here's the main light with the backpack as ballast. I was working out of the rental car; 

A Nissan Rogue. I put 4.5 miles on it yesterday....

Here's the standard configuration for my use of the AD200.

If the sun is out then my Chimera diffusion scrim is along for the ride. Gotta keep the harsh 

shadows off the "talent." 

It's impractical to fly with enough sandbags so you get into the practice of finding 

good substitutes at your locations. Two days ago we used a bungee cord and a log to 

secure a stand with a diffuser on it. Today it's a metal stanchion. 

I should have used a metal stanchion or big steel pipe on this set up but I thought 20 pounds of backpack would do the trick. I was wrong again....

Here's the basic set up. Just add the talent and you are good to go. 

I usually try to construct short lighting. It's the most flattering.

Stuff wears out. Sometimes gravity wears it out a lot quicker.

But when everything goes well it's a nice, quick field technique...

©2018 Kirk Tuck. Do not reproduce.

How to be a (mostly) happy photographer. From my point of view.

I have a lot of friends and clients who ask me (seriously) why I always have a smile on my face and always seem......pretty happy. Well, at this point in my life I think I have a few things figured out and I thought I'd share my perspective. 

The first thing I thought of beyond the personal stuff (like falling in love with the right future spouse or living in a city that makes it hard to fail) is loving what you do. I know, I know, we all love photography but if you are making a living at it do you love the stuff that surrounds taking the photos? Do you like meeting with clients? Do you like collaborating? Do you like experimenting? Do you like telling stories? Do you like figuring out what to use to make a great shot? Do you love it when you absolutely nail a shot? I can honestly say yes to all of the above. I love having lunch with favorite clients, working as a tight team with an advertising agency counterpart, etc. I don't even mind the parts of travel that most people hate....

Loving what I do takes so much stress out of my life and the feeling of mastery I finally have gives me deep satisfaction. That I have figured out how to charge people for it isn't just the "icing on the cake" it's an integral part of the process. So, to be happy you have to love your day to day work. In addition to that I would say that there is much inherent happiness in charting and following your own course. Working for anybody else comes with restrictions, different expectations and compromise. All of which I encounter with clients but I always have the ability to walk away from toxic clients and still pay the bills at the end of the month...Happiness, to a certain extent, is based on being existentially unencumbered. But socially well attached.

To love an ever changing visual profession I think you need to be ever curious. Being curious leads you to question conventional wisdom and to experiment for yourself. While changing cameras all the time drives linear thinkers on web forums batty I think continually seeing how diverse tools influence your thinking, your approach to making photographs and your approach to the job of making photographs is amply rewarded by understanding how to do the craft you love in a zillion different ways rather than being like an ox in a yoke, traveling around in a circle. How do you really know which camera will make you happiest (remembering that this is our goal) if you don't give some of them a try. Happiness is finally coming to the realization that you could do good work with any camera you put in your hands so you get to play with as many as you'd like. But it's the mastery over the equipment (and rejecting the presumed need to follow the herd) that creates more happiness. Grab cameras and use them until you know what you like and then get that and use it. Not happy with the camera? Try another one. They are relatively cheap for most people.

finding your own idea of beauty wherever you look.

Happy photographers are not the photographers who only pick up the camera if there is a purchase order or job involved. Since the very act of creating is fulfilling and positive it stands to reason that doing it more and more often will lead to more happiness. I combine my love of people with my love of photographing people, and when I connect person-to-person as well as photographer-to-subject it makes my work better and gives me another profoundly nice layer of happiness. In many ways the act of making portraits is really the act of making friends. The more friends one has the happier most people are. A subset of benefits to making portraits all the time is that you develop a subconscious process for discovering beauty. Your completely subjective idea of beauty. I love to identify something that I think is unusual beauty instead of obvious beauty. You won't find many brash, chesty blonde hot babes in my portfolio or my personal work but you will find lots of people who have an unusual aspect of beauty or a manifestation of grace that I work hard to bring into photographs. It's often an imperfection or a variance from routine perfection that I find stunningly beautiful. Looking for, and finding beauty in the life around us is another source of.....happiness.  Appreciating beauty as you have come to define it is a happy undertaking.

Drinking good coffee makes me happy but it's not all about the chemistry of the beverage. For me, drinking coffee means going someplace to find good coffee and then surrounding myself with friends and sharing, talking, and supporting each other. Life is already solitary enough. Taking a break to check in with close friends, and to meet new friends, makes one.....happy. Doing it over better coffee makes one more happy.

Simple moments of beauty make me smile and smiling makes me happier. Knowing that nature is in flux always leads me to walk and savor it; to see it change in front of me. It gives me an excuse to go outside and be part of the whole. Feeling the Seasons and making photographs that remind me of something like a cool Autumn day in the north makes me appreciate my tenure on the planet. And, generally, that makes me happy. It's bittersweet knowing that everything ends but knowing that I am in it now is wonderful and worth appreciating.

Which leads me to the idea that having a little faith (not necessarily religion) that everything is working as it should and as it will takes away stress and uncertainty and gives me the confidence to plunge into new projects. I have faith that they'll work out, faith that even if the projects fail they'll add to my store of ideas, my experience and even my character. But most stuff works out. And people who have no faith in the universe, or themselves, never start out on uncertain projects and never get to see their way to a beautiful resolution. I have faith that life will unspool in random and chaotic ways but that there will always be a pattern in the chaos. Nothing I can do will change or do much to hamper the chaos but I rely on my faith that order exists in chaos, even if I don't understand it.  

If you want to be a happy photographer then learn to celebrate your victories, no matter how small they may seem. It's the small things that are seeds to bigger achievement and bigger ideas. When a meeting goes well I might celebrate with a cookie. When I win a bid I celebrate by going for a walk. When a job goes well I might take the family out for dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant. When I finally get the tax return done I might take a weekend vacation with Belinda. If, every time a shot goes well you just .... smile and feel satisfaction it reinforces and builds happiness. 

I spent part of last week hiking around in the Tennessee hills and valleys. Today I was in the middle of the Everglades in Florida. By Sunday I'll be walking around looking at stuff in Reykjavik (probably in a bit of drizzle) in each case I have a camera in my hand as I watch new scenes unfold in front of me. I decide what to shoot and what to pass by. I linger on stuff that resonates with me. But I guess my point is that I've conspired to make my job a catalyst for getting off my ass, out from in front of my computer screen and moving. Always moving. Life is motion. The more you move the happier you are. Hiking, walking through long airport corridors, climbing mountains or walking through cities that are new to me --- it's all about motion and motion is happiness. That's why I walk and that's why I swim.

If you want to be happy you need to have a broad enough perspective in order to reject small minded ideas. Traveling can give you a much broader understanding for difference, diversity and the potential of people who have constructed societies that work. Happy people live longer, travel more and learn all the time; mostly through new experiences and exposure to new people. If you want to be happy then get off the office chair and come up with a good reason to travel. It doesn't have to be far. It would be a mind expanding experience for some people in tightly cosseted neighborhoods just to drive across town and sit in a coffee shop that caters to a different demographic. I lived in Turkey for two years of my younger life, have traveled to 18 other countries for work and play and am about to embark on a trip to Iceland and then, a few weeks later, over to the United Kingdom. I learn a bit more with every trip but the biggest lesson is that we need to stop making our nationalism a tool of division and to embrace the best of every culture. The world seems more homogenous because products seem more and more the same across borders and the internet keeps shrinking (or expanding?) the social communication space but it's the face to face encounters that humanize us to our neighbors and vice versa. And that's a good thing.

If you want to be really happy then go fall in love. Be careful because the idea of love can be a two edged sword; exhilarating when it's good and excruciating if it turns bad. Be as careful finding a person as you are finding a camera system....well, maybe even more so because you probably won't find as many opportunities to "trade systems" and  g"upgrading" gets REALLY, REALLY expensive. As my friend, Mike, used to say: "Every time I get divorced I cut my net worth in half and my life expectancy by another two years...." Seriously though, a good partner who understands that you take photographs not because you want to but because you love to and feel like it's an important part of your life, will enhance your happiness and reduce your levels of distraction year after year. And, it's vital to have someone wonderful to share all those victories, successes and milestones with. Lonely success is no success at all...

Want to be happy with your work? Don't do anything exactly the same way twice. If you're not taking chances then you are just going through the motions and you might as well be a banker, lawyer or car mechanic (my preference would be car mechanic, but only on old cars that require....creativity). Seriously, as soon as I get a lighting design down and do it for a day I'm ready to move on a try something new; even if it's just a nuance-y sort of change. It's swimming without a life jacket on that makes the swimming fun. A relentless focus on making technique better match your vision. I'm always working on technique because I know it's always more important than the gear.

Put your stuff out there. No project ever feels completely finished. There's always one more thing you could be polishing. But at some point you just need to take a stiff drink (literally or metaphorically) and put your work out to your audience. They can love it or hate it but you've already made yourself happy by doing the process; the  sharing is just a way of acknowledging that you are moving on to the next thing. The next process, the next dose of happy creativity.

Wanna be happy? Don't go so fast. Be prepared to slow down and experience stuff instead of racing to meet self-imposed obligations and deadlines. I was driving back from somewhere when I saw this field of flowers. At first I drove on by at 60 mph. About a half a mile down the road I gave myself permission to modify my schedule and to go spend an hour just savoring and experiencing field after field of beautiful flowers growing near the highway in the middle of central Texas. It was wonderful and the photo makes me smile every time I look at it. I like flowers but I like reminders of my own freedom even more. A good photograph can remind you of the time you decided to stop and savor something instead of rushing back to the office just to do more stuff. Endless stuff makes me unhappy.

If you want to be happy you need to figure out how to save money. The more money you save the more bad assignments and the more bad clients you can afford to turn down. And when you turn down bad clients you leave more space for the good ones to step in. You become accessible and you become sought after. The money helps you be a better critic of work. Yours, your potential clients and everyone else out there. Fear of running out of money ruins happiness and creativity. Security brings with it the freedom to do things your way or jot collaborate with people who respect your vision and talent. They'll see you as a creator instead of an order filler. You'll all feel better. Money in the bank means being able to do your own work or to chill out and take a break when you've done a lot of good work in a short amount of time. You do it by saving a little all the time. By not buying crazy stuff. By not living beyond your means. I don't buy stuff unless I can afford to do so without hitting my savings, my overall cash flow or making me uncomfortable and leaving me at the mercy of fear and predatory clients. Cash in the bank (metaphorically) is a win.

To Summarize:

Love to work on your work.

Be in love for the long run.

Take care of yourself with good food and exercise and you'll be able to carry cameras further, look at more stuff and have more enjoyable experiences with the process of photography.

Save your money. Stop grabbing for the shiny stuff and live beneath your means, you might need the money more in the future than Nikon or Canon need it today. Always remember what my friend, Heidi (professor of accounting at UT) once said to me:

Compound interest can be your best friend or your worst enemy.

Make friends wherever you go. Go wherever you can make friends.

To be a happy photographer photograph the things you love. Subject is the essence of photography. Photography doesn't exist without subjects.

Travel broadens the mind (and the heart). Travel expands your portfolio. 

Don't wait for some better, future self to come along and do great work. The only way to a better, future self is by settling in and doing the good work right now.

Love subjects more than cameras. 

Love people more than work. 

If you do this for money then work hard to find the joy and value in everything you photograph.

For the ultimate in happiness just keep reading Kirk's blog.....(okay, that was just a joke).

The only way to have more happiness is to decide to have more happiness. 

It starts with a smile.

May life give you many licks on the face.

I'll gladly walk a mile in another man's shoes.....if they are size 10 Ahnus.

Live well. But a red car? Hmmm. Why not?

Love where you live, or move.

Cameras are fun. Just remember why we have them.

If you swim everyday then.....

...every once in a while it's okay to have one of these.

Few things make the process of post production happier than a good custom white balance before you snap that frame.

Learn from classical art. 

Eat lots of fun food. Whole food. Happy food.

And, if you are sitting in first class, always remember when you too used to fly economy.

That's all I've got. Happiness.

I know I should be packing for my big trip to Iceland right now so why was I in the Florida Everglades this morning and....

High ISO image from the GH5S at Zach Theatre. 

..... and how did I end up in a weirdly anachronistic Hilton Hotel near Fort Bragg tonight? Oh, that's right, I'm a corporate photographer and I've been working on building a catalog of environmental executive portraits all over the Southeastern U.S. for a gigantic infrastructure construction company. 

For the last eight days my schedule is about 4:1 travel to actual, on the ground, camera handling. The problem is that when you fly into smaller cities and towns in the U.S. there's rarely a direct flight from anywhere but one of the airline hubs. Yesterday it was Austin > Atlanta > Huntsville and then Huntsville > Atlanta > West Palm Beach, FLA (no, I didn't get to stay at The Breakers and no, I did not have another dinner at Mar A Lago).

Tomorrow is the last leg of the commercial job and I'll be photographing this leg in Fayetteville, NC. Then I do the Fayetteville > Atlanta > Austin shuffle. But, since it's the end of a long job and a few days before my birthday I decided to upgrade my flights back home to first class. A bit over the top for an arch Puritan like me but I think I'll be tired enough to rationalize it all tomorrow....You know, we 158 pound, five foot eight inch photographers really need the legroom....

The thing that will drive all the linear photo fans crazy about the last eight days though is the fact that the entire job has been shot on a Panasonic G9 and almost all of it has been done with the 12-60mm Panasonic/Leica lens. The system worked well in the flash FP mode today. I was shooting a bunch of portrait in bright sun (in the midst of swamp land, surrounded by pythons and alligators) and I did my usual technique of flying a 4x4 foot scrim over the top of the subject in order to block direct sun and then lighting the subject with a main light in a 3x4 foot soft box. I couldn't justify paying extra baggage charges to bring along a bunch of sandbags so I enlisted part of the crew we were with to hold the light stands and keep the wind from turning them into dangerous instruments.

I used a Godox AD 200 flash with a bare tube in the soft box and triggered it with a dedicated Godox flash trigger that's dedicated for Olympus (and by extension) Panasonic cameras. I was shooting in manual and the entire system worked perfectly. After my learning curve last week I left the bigger monolights at home and depended on the AD200 while keeping two smaller (but potent) Godox shoe mount flashes in reserve. I brought along two light stands but I also ditched the tripod (what the hell? We've been shooting in direct sun with a hight stabilized camera and lens......!!!) and was able to pare down to only one checked bag. I packed some extra clothes and my toothbrush in with the lighting gear. 

So, the entire job was done with a small sensor G9 (not that there are big sensor  G9s...) and, for the most part, a single lens. The flash work was simple and straightforward and yet it all worked well and  could be handled by a single person.

The star of my gear collection over the course of the last two weeks is the little Think Tank backpack I bought on a whim. It's just perfect. It's my number one choice for camera luggage for Iceland. Under the seat in front of you.......YES.

I'm really getting excited about the trip to Reykjavik and beyond. I've taken out a second mortgage on the house to cover the cost of extra food for eight days and I'm waiting for Amazon to deliver a variety of rainwear, Goretex stuff and plug adapters. Well, actually, since I've been traveling to Europe on and off since 1978 I've got a whole drawer of adapters and the only things I'm taking that require electricity are multi-voltage devices; to wit: my MacBook Pro and the charger for my G9 batteries. I'm actually toying with the idea of leaving my phone at home. 

In all seriousness I did take a few minutes to call my bank and have them add the ability to use a PIN with my primary Visa card and I did get in touch and let all three of my credit card providers know of my travel plans for last week, this week and through the 4th of November. Since someone else booked my flights and made my (fabulous) hotel reservations I thought it prudent to keep the guardians of my funds alerted and informed. Now, if I could only remember what that PIN actually is...

Home tomorrow for about 36 hours. Just enough time to check in with the family, pay some bills, check on my dad, do some laundry and repack the cameras. Oh, and to get in one more swim practice. And, yes, I am packing my swim gear in anticipation of hitting one of the in-city pools a couple of times over the next week to get some laps in. I'll count the trip a big success if I don't go broke paying for coffee and also get in a couple thousand yards on an every other day basis.

Can't say enough good stuff about the Panasonics. They may be small, light, agile and capable but that doesn't make them any less professional. 

Till tomorrow. KT

Help me be a better Iceland tourist and photo teacher. If you have tips, hints, insider info, etc. take a moment to leave a comment.

Russian model. In the studio in West Austin.

So, I'm rounding up the usual gear and getting on a plane first thing tomorrow morning to continue the same assignment we were doing last week. I'll be in Florida, Alabama and North Carolina before getting back here (hopefully) in the early evening Thursday. That's eight flights in three days. Weird travel schedule for sure. But what it really means is that I don't have endless days to do web research about my next trip; the one to Iceland for nine days. I know what I want to pack in terms of photo gear and computer stuff but I'd love to hear from people who found good masters swim programs in Reykjavik and also good swimming pools that are open late (I'll sneak away and swim while others hit the bar.....).

Also trying to compile a list of good coffee shops and neighborhood food joints that are off the beaten path --- if that's possible. 

I've been watching the weather every day and it seems like good rain gear is much more important than bringing a bunch of cold weather gear worthy of a north pole expedition. Talk to me about shoes, boots, and assorted footwear. 

I guess the lower light situation is something we take for granted so the tripod is mandatory. 

Give me as much information as you can. Everyone's perspective adds to the trove. Thanks! KT

Swimming against the conventional stream with a small backpack filled with mirrorless cameras and their tidy lenses.

the "Jenga" building in Austin nears completion. 

Hmmm. Ten years ago arriving at a photo assignment with a small and nimble camera might have raised eyebrows. Seems that in 2008 everyone of a certain age defined themselves as a photo-enthusiast and had done a deep dive into the jungle of photographic lore and "knowledge" about all things digital photography. Companies were asking their employees who loved photography to step up and shoot corporate events and even portraits for the company (and usually with no additional compensation). Companies were so happy to get free stuff that they used anything a willing employee volunteer might toss over the transom to them... it was all red meat to people who wanted stuff for free.

And then a funny thing happened over the ensuing decade, corporations found out that they were diverting parts of their workforces to tasks that could be acquired from vendors with better production quality and at no real additional cost since by asking valuable and highly trained employees to do these tasks took the employees away from more productive and profitable work that was mission critical for the enterprise. Yes, trained engineers develop more value for their companies working on new products, inventing new stuff and making software salable than they do taking team building photos for Chip down in H.R. 

During the same time frame the same ardent volunteers became collectively bored with photography and moved on to things like piloting drones or diddling with ever better cellphones to binge watching crap presented by the on demand video purveyors. Seems that tiny, incremental improvements in still cameras, or any improvements in the video sections of their still cameras held very little interest for people mostly bent on mastering technical things.

I used to hear, a lot, that clients really, really cared about what kind of camera you showed up with to an assignment. The mantra ten years ago was that showing up with anything less than a full frame, 35mm style, DSLR would cause clients to question your judgement, your abilities and even your fitness to be their photographer. If you didn't show up with a D3 or a Canon 1DSxx some photo-enthusiast clients (the story went) might be tempted to fire you, pick up their own superior camera and just shoot the damn project themselves.

I'll admit that during the lean years of 2008-2009 I felt like hedging my bets by showing up with what people thought of as "a fully professional" camera even though I knew through my experience and testing that we'd reached the point, even back then, at which most cameras on the market were vastly and completely capable of giving clients what they needed for ads, websites, and even posters. And by "most cameras" I mean anything 12 megapixels or over that could be used in a fully manual mode and which came complete with a tripod mount. A way to trigger a flash was also mostly a requirement....

But "group think" makes us do stupid stuff sometimes and can also deprive us of both the potential to have maximum fun and also to stand out from the crowd with images that look different. So, with some clients it was okay to show up with an Olympus EP-2 and a little bag of lenses but there were other clients you thought might be more disposed to seeing you crank up and use "the big guns."

Well. Here I am ten years later. I'm still a photographer and I still have to please clients but the interesting thing is that all those amateurs that used to siddle up me and ask me about camera gear have gone the way of the dodo. The people who do question me are much, much more likely to ask me why I'm still using an iPhone 5S than to ask about a camera or a lens. If the camera you are using can take different lenses then you've pretty much passed the test; the bar, that most clients have set.

This past week I worked for a very large construction and building services client on the eastern part of the U.S. I'd worked with their V.P. of advertising and marketing for years in Austin before she moved away and ended up in this new position. She remembered my work not because of what cameras I used back in our Austin work days together but because she liked the way I handled people and, secondarily, the way I handled lighting. She reached out not knowing (or particularly caring) whether I showed up with a micro four thirds sensor camera, a Sony RX10 series camera or a husky Nikon or Canon full frame camera. She just wanted to make sure I'd show up with the kind of light that would clients look good in just about any environment. Lighting that solves visual problems. And she likes the fact that I get along with all kinds of people. I generally give out a "no prima donna" guarantee to most clients...

I spent a lot of time vacillating between camera and lens choices before I left on this assignment. I weighed (literally and figuratively) the advantages and disadvantage of different formats and different lens choices, and also how much time we'd have on each location to set up and deliver good results. Finally, I also considered the portability of each choice. I would, by the end of the week, be on and off about ten flights and would need (and want) to carry all the cameras and lenses onboard each flight with me. That alone is a lot of portage with gear. But the flights are the tip of the gear moving logistics.

Since many of our locations were remote, at the end of dirt roads, up hills with no roads, and some involved walking half a mile or so to various locations, weight became part of the calculus. Would I be able to arrive ready to shoot or would my pulse be pounding? Would the cameras float along with me or be like an anchor?

I decided to leave the small selection of Nikon full frame cameras and lenses at home and to focus on building the perfect travel kit around micro four thirds cameras. I ended up packing two of the Panasonic G9s. They are light and agile but deliver a good and sharp 20 megapixels of detail and do so with good dynamic range and color. Used in the raw+Jpeg format they delivered both files to send quickly and files to keep safe for processing back here at the ranch.

I have ample batteries for the G9s because my GH5s and my GH5S all take the same battery. I'm familiar now with the menus and that's half the battle in being able to use a camera system for lots and lots of set ups with efficiency. The instant feedback of the finder image also makes the entire process of creating an image quicker and more fluid.

When I came across a landscape or industrial-scape that might make a great, large image I had no hesitation in using the high resolution mode to generate files that measure more than 10,000 pixels on the long side of the frame. If I came upon contrasty light I had no resistance to using the custom shadow/highlight curve control in the camera. Hell, if push comes to shove I don't even flinch at using the in-camera HDR feature (but sparingly, sparingly).

In anticipation of this trip I researched camera cases, bags and backpacks that could ride along with me in any kind of commercial airplane, from small jets to the ubiquitous 737s. What I've come to realize is that it's not enough to plan around a bag that might fit in the overhead compartment of a standard aircraft, like a 737, because if you are running late, made a reservation late, etc. you might not get that option. I've noticed that no one likes to check bags anymore and American Airlines was aggressively proactive about making people gate check bags after they assessed that the overheads were filled to the brim. Gate checking. Spawn process of the Devil.

I never want to gate check my camera bag, case or backpack because I also use said luggage to carry my passport, my phone, my receipts and my lovely laptop. Murphy's Law is always in force and engaged whenever you check, or gate check, the things you absolutely need to have, and in perfect condition, to do your job at the next location.

Your failure proof strategy then becomes finding a carrying solution that ...... "fits under the seat in front of you." That's the only safe recourse when flying on commercial airlines. If you are flying on private jets you probably aren't reading this anyway. It is meaningless to you......

I did my diligent research. I found the Think Tank Airport Essentials backpack. It is well padded but still holds a lot. It will hold a 13 inch laptop but not a 15 inch laptop. It's comfortable to carry for long distances and.....with even the smallest regional jet on which I flew....it always fits under the seat in front of me.

So, what all can I fit into the TT backpack? Two G9 camera bodies. One 12-100mm f4.0 Olympus Pro lens. One 12-60mm f2.8-4.0 Panasonic/Leica lens. One Sigma 60mm f2.8 DN lens. One 40-150mm f2.8 Olympus lens. One Panasonic/Leica 8-18mm lens. One extra pair of bifocal eyeglasses. Four extra camera batteries. One small USB phone charger. One iPhone 5S. One set of Samsung Level noise cancelling earbuds. Two pens. One reporter's notebook. One 13 inch MacBook Pro laptop computer. One computer power supply. One dongle which provides two USB 3 ports and one SD card reader. Three 256 GB memory sticks. And one pack of gum.

By the end of the trip the backpack also contained receipts for $1200 of hotel charges, $350 of baggage charges and $250 of food and miscellaneous expenses (coffee?).

The bag worked perfectly and not a single flight attendant so much as gave me the "stink eye" for carrying it aboard. I could not have used this backpack in the same way with bigger cameras; something would have to give. Things would be left out. And, again under Murphy's Law, those would be the very things I would find mission critical. 

The Think Tank product is priced high at $200 but it's the best portable solution I have found yet and will relegate my Amazon Large Photo backpack to very secondary status. That's okay, I paid about a third as much for the Amazon product and it has been very useful.

Now, the lighting case is a whole different ball of wax. There's only so much one can do to lighten one's load and still deliver professional results but I'm working hard to shave that down too and, since I leave early Tues. morning for three more days on the road before the trip to Iceland, I have another opportunity to peel off ten more pounds from that case. The lighter the load the further I can go and the better I can deliver.

Camera formats are way low on my list of concerns for these kinds of trips. While a fashion photographer might find it essential to get a tiny sliver of sharp focus in a shot most of my work for corporations is predicated on production value instead of visual gimmicks. If a narrow depth of field is called for I go long and wide open with the Olympus 40-150mm f2.8. Or I pulled the Contax/Zeiss 50mm out and shoot it wide open (I packed that one in the lighting case when I decided I'd reached my personal carry limit).

Other than the mild considerations of small depth of field I find very few quality differences between formats for most intended marketing targets. I do find showing up with enough strength and energy to do the job is a much more vital consideration and is, in many cases, tied directly to the size and weight of the gear I am bringing.

In Iceland I'll continue on with the Think Tank backpack and the twin G9s plan. I know I'll want to bring along the Panasonic/Leica 8-18mm and the 12-60mm but I'm hemming and hawing over whether or not to include the 40-150mm f2.8. Any thoughts on that?

You'll still read tons of internet fodder about the need for full frame or the need for insane levels of resolution but the reality is that almost everything goes to the web these days and even an entry level Olympus OMD 10iii  camera is sufficient to provide enough resolution, sharpness and color depth to handle a two page magazine spread. Believe me, people were doing it with 4,6,8,10 and 12 megapixel sensors well over a decade ago and the magazines looked great.

Choose the system that works well for your "real use" parameters not for pie in the sky stuff. If you get hired to shoot a super model for the cover of Vogue you'll have the budget to rent whatever camera you think you might need.  And an assistant to help you operate it. Really. For everything else? Choose what you like.

If you took the advice of certain old pros you'd still be adjusting your carburetor and dialing up stuff on your modem. It's a new tech paradigm. Now you get to have more fun.

I tried the high resolution mode on the G9. It works well.

I was miles outside of Asheville, NC (a beautiful town!) out into a part of the countryside most people won't see because few paved roads go there. We were on the construction site of a big spillway project and I found this view. I set up the Panasonic G9 on a tripod using the 8-18mm Leica lens at 11mm and f6.3. I had the camera set to a two second delay and tripped the shutter. The process was much faster than I expected and the 10,000+ wide pixel file wrote to the card in seconds.

The file needed a bit more sharpening that the regular raw files out of camera but not much more. The detail is ample as well. If I was a landscape photographer for whom portability was critical I'd sure think of ditching the bigger, heavier, traditional cameras and getting a small rig like this. But in the long run the most critical part of the equation is the stalwart Gitzo tripod I've been using for ages.

High resolution in the camera is only theoretical until you put down rock solid support for the platform.

Fabulous lenses can only deliver hypothetical brilliance until you anchor them to unmoving ground.

All in all the G9 and the 8-18mm Leica/Panasonic lens are a good combination. New software is coming next Sunday that should allow the use of hi-res up to f11 instead of just f8. Just the ticket for people who WILL use the hi-res mode for still life .... and even architecture.

Nice that I was able to hike in without feeling burdened by the tools. Next, we'll talk about that wonderful backpack from Think Tank. A revelation. In a good way.