A lot of times it's the necessary nuts and bolts of camera gear that makes the difference in photography.

 

Heading back to my car after a pleasant afternoon of photography.

Interesting that most folks are fixated on their camera and lens when it comes to the idea of going outside your home base to make photographs. Sure, you need a decent camera and lens if you are going to come home with nice photographs but so many times it's the lack of a small and inexpensive product that messes up your otherwise best laid plans. 

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only photographer who has absent-mindedly left the house without a memory card in his camera. You might have come in late the night before and rushed to download your files and,  being all sleepy-headed you left the camera's usual memory card in the card reader. You get to your shooting destination, turn on your camera and get a message telling you that there's no card. 

You probably have read so many times about the necessity of making a checklist for commercial projects and I'm sure you follow that checklist for work; it's when the career is not on the line when the checklist gets "overlooked" or ignored. Knowing that no client will be disappointed is nice but it doesn't take the full sting out of having to circle back home to find that missing component. It's much worse if you've traveled for an hour or so to your destination... That's happened to me. I searched out an office supply store and paid an outrageous price for a mediocre card with limited space. But at least I got to do some photographs. Better to check for a memory card every time you pick up your camera to leave the office or the house. Even better to keep a back-up card in the car and maybe even in your pocket.

Remember the film days when camera straps had attachments that would hold an extra roll of film? Maybe someone will come out with a small strap attachment that holds and extra memory card. Or two. 

A different version of the "lost" card is grabbing a card that still needs to be downloaded before it can be re-used and only finding that out on arrival to your once in a lifetime photo opportunity. Do you erase those previous great images to make room for a new group? Do you sit in your car and try to edit down the number of images on the card so you can continue onward? Naw. Better to always check. I usually re-format my cards as soon as I've downloaded jobs, projects or even an afternoon's fun shooting. When I pick up a camera these days I turn it on and hit "play" to make sure there is nothing on the card that might need to be saved. 

Of course, if you are updating memory cards it always makes sense to me to buy a lot of capacity. I try to buy 128 GB cards --- at a minimum. And I always try to buy V90 rated cards as well. The larger capacity means I can probably shoot on a previous used and un-formatted card with enough space for both the last job and the current one. The reason to buy V90s is my belief that the fast the card's read and write speeds the faster the operation of the camera will be. 

I've met a number of photographers who've bought state of the art cameras and then, in a state of ignorance or self-defeating frugality, have put in older, slower, smaller capacity cards. The one's they've been using for years. These are the same ilk of photographer who buys a top of the line camera and, to save money, uses it with a cheap and mediocre, third party ultra-focal length zoom lens. And then complains about the lack of sharpness in the corners. One good body and one great lens is better than a whole raft of crappy lenses. And easier to carry as well. 

Then there's the camera battery. Or batteries. Once you've checked to make sure you have a memory card in the camera and that it has enough capacity to hold the number of images you want to take the next biggest point of failure is the camera battery. So much to go wrong here. 

I've heard stories of people checking their batteries, finding that they've got a full charge and then shoving the camera into a camera bag in such a way that the camera gets switched on and the shutter button gets constant pressure from the material in the bag. The battery that was perfect when they left the house is on its last legs upon arrival at the destination. If nobody thought to bring a back-up battery then the shoot is effectively over. And...good luck trying to find a Sony, Nikon or Leica battery at the drug store in tiny Johnson City. Or at the convenience store closest to that state park you wanted to document. You might have ten thousand dollars worth of camera gear in your hands but it's all kind or worthless without a charged battery. At that point it's just ballast for your camera bag...

When I go out for an afternoon of photographing for fun I make sure my camera battery is fully charged. If I'm using a camera bag I take the battery out of the camera and put it in its own pocket. No accidental discharges happen that way. I also have some little thick plastic bags that are just the right size for most camera batteries. I keep an extra battery in the little plastic bag. Fully charged. If I'm using a camera bag (not often) the battery rides in the small bag, in the camera bag. If I'm going with the "one camera/one lens" rig then the extra battery (and its plastic bag) goes in a pants pocket. Why the plastic bag? To keep from accidentally shorting the battery out on a set of car keys. That would be the most dramatic version of a "Hot Pocket." 

So, you've got the batteries sorted, and the memory cards. You've arrived at the parking facility for your final destination and you decide to double check everything. You pull off the lens cap and, just in that moment, your allergies hit and you have an uncontrollable, autonomic urge to sneeze. And you do. Right on to the front element of your precious and only lens. That's when you're so happy you brought along a cheap, inexpensive, easy to carry, lens cleaning cloth. And you fish around in the center console of your car and find a small spray bottle of lens cleaner. Hurray! Your foresight pays off. 

I keep Zeiss lens cleaning kits in all the cars, in my camera bag and on my desk in the studio. Most of the time all I need to keep a lens working right is a little bulb blower. Just enough air pressure to take the dust off. But if you need a cleaning cloth you really NEED a cleaning cloth. Just try to protect that front element if you can. As an ancient photographer once famously said, "It's better to keep your lens clean than to keep cleaning your lens." The idea being that no matter how resolute the coating is on the front element it can eventually be scrapped off. And now one wants an expensive but very low contrast lens...

I find the biggest culprit, when it comes to dust on lenses, is our cavalier approach to lens caps. If you are like me you are generally in a hurry to get busy and you pull of your lens cap and stuff it in your pocket. But most pockets are lint magnets; dust storage areas. If you must toss your cap in a pants pocket then get that little bulb blower out and give it a few squirts of air before you put back on your camera. And remember, those plastic lens caps can generate their own static electric charges that are even better at attracting and holding on to dust. Dust is just about every where. Unless you are photographing in a .35 micron clean room...

This will probably fall on deaf ears but I have two lens cleaning rules. First, your shirt tail or sweaty t-shirt is not a lens cleaning cloth. Most of the time it just makes things worse. Second, exhaling on your lens to help clean a spot is, well, a bit crazy. As you exhale on the surface of your lens you are coating it with moist acid from your mouth. And then, no doubt, scraping it with that shirt we talked about. Bad news for the multi-coatings. If you are going to photograph someplace sloppy, with flying diet Coke, some rain in the forecast and with a dusty, unpaved racetrack as your location then I would suggest that you cover that lens with a very high quality filter. Shooting sparks and molten metals splashing? Maybe a cheaper filter. Clean air, blue skies and no small children splashing around juice boxes? Maybe lose that "protective" filter and get your money's worth out of your lenses. 

Finally, I'm going to suggest something that I never really thought about until a brand new camera and an iffy strap almost parted ways on me when I was walking downtown. The strap retainer was defective. The strap was holding onto the camera by the barest of connections. I happened to look down and saw the strap about to abandon one side of the camera. Hasn't happened to me in decades but there you are. I got back home, ordered new straps and checked all my other cameras. Crazy shit happens. And it happens mostly to people like me who just take stuff for granted. But who would I have blamed if I ended up sweeping up bits of my Leica off the sidewalk? There's only me. 

All these things come into play and can ruin an otherwise pleasant shooting day. A bit of time spent double-checking is good insurance against either frustration or lost opportunity --- which I guess is the same thing.

Why did I write this? Because I made a stupid error yesterday. I forgot that the camera I selected was the one camera that doesn't have a built-in diopter or an accessory diopter added on. I need a +2.0 diopter on the eyepiece of my Leica M cameras if I am to focus correctly. Either that or I need to wear my glasses but the eye point stand off on the M240s is a short and it's hard to see wall-to-wall for the wide angle frame lines with glasses. Forgetting all of this I tossed my glasses on the dining room table (don't need them yet for driving) and just took for granted that the camera had diopter-ability. It did not. So I spent the afternoon pressing a 28mm lens into service; mostly for its extensive depth of field. Instead of  the 75mm lens I really wanted to shoot with. When I screw up on one aspect I tend to start reviewing all point of possible failure. Why? Hmmm. Maybe it's 40+ years of being scared of disappointing paying clients of all kinds. One screw up per decade is about the most your business will grudgingly accept. So there's that. But even if I'm just shooting for fun I'd always like to optimize my experience just because it feels so much better to get everything just right. 

Amazon Prime advertising an upcoming series on their video service. Grab shot. 

the $1920 dollar Ferris Wheel. Right on Congress Ave. 

this giant piece of temporary infrastructure is actually a super large screen (see through-able in daylight) that is used to project video after dark. It's a street corner that Netflix is using 

to market themselves at SXSW. I think it beats the Amazon truck advertising. 

Portrait of a photographer I often run into downtown.

Below: We took turns photographing each other photographing. 

Zone focusing can be wonderful. And quick. So quick

Quicker than your Sony can AF....

Caffeinated sports/energy drinks everywhere. Free samples until you go into 

atrial fibrillation. Not a big worry for those who are still young at heart. 

All photographed on the 28mm lens and a rangefinder camera. 

a rangefinder camera with no diopter...sigh.