Packing always drives me a little nuts. A new backpack always seems like the right thing to try. Here's my latest....

The new backpack.

It's obvious to everyone now that you really don't want to check your cameras and lens in as luggage when you fly. The risk of damage and/or loss is just too great, and if you have a job waiting at the other end of the trip it'll make you crazy to arrive without the tools you need to get the work done. I have to confess something here; I am a very nervous flyer when it comes to work. I routinely get to our local airport at least two and a half hours before my scheduled flight. I have anxiety about getting the gear from the car to the Skycaps. If the lines are long I am indecisive about whether I should wait at the curbside check-in or take my chances with the agents inside the terminal. When traveling I am very much like James Thurber character (nervous to a fault) and, at 61, I've given up trying to make massive changes to my own travel psychology. 

Since that is the case I just concentrate on trying to control what I usually can. My upcoming trip to the Toronto area is a classic example. I'm videotaping interviews on location there, and also taking photographs. When we did our first in this series of videos we shot here in the Austin area I had the luxury of brining along everything I even remotely thought I might need. Or want. I had one case full of cameras and lenses. All the good stuff along with back-up cameras and lenses for every possibility. We could easily have done a nice, four camera shoot. I hauled along two big video tripods as well as a shoulder mount and a monopod. 

If we needed light stands in our interior locations we had five stout Manfrotto ten footers, with a couple of C-Stands riding along as contingency support. Lights?

Zany Cheap Stuff I Love to Have in My Studio (or in the car, or in the rolling case, etc.) Part 6.

Pelican organizational device. Much needed in my life.

These little waterproof cases are from Pelican. I use the one above to keep my Sennheiser wireless system safe and all together. The size is just right. I use another one that is the same size but a different color to keep all my radio triggers for studio flashes, etc. in one place. If everything has a dedicated box to live in it cues you to get your stuff back in the right container after every shoot. I need to get a couple more; one for camera batteries and one for all the small audio cables I seem to be collecting for microphones, mixers, etc.

These guys are sturdy and the clear lid is great for a quick check on what's inside. They even come with a carabiner so you can hook them to some part of your camera bag or roller case. They're less than $20 and also make a great box for the huge collection of sunglasses that seem to be building almost daily in my car....

Organization. That means I need a much bigger Pelican case so I can keep these little boxes inside.....
It never stops.

Zany Cheap Stuff I Love to Have in My Studio (or in the car, or in the rolling case, etc.) Part 5.

Sennheiser MKE 600 microphone. 

When I first jumped back into making videos I didn't think I'd get very serious about it so I didn't want to spend a lot of money on peripherals; like microphones and fancy tripods. I made the same mistake so many people do and instead of just buying one really adequate microphone I started down a path that began with less expensive units. My first new mic was the original Rode Videomic. It took a 9 volt battery, had pretty good, rubber band isolation and it really wasn't a stinky performer; especially if you used it as most are designed: within a couple feet of your actor or speaker. It was good but

Zany Cheap Stuff I Love to Have in My Studio (or in the car, or in the rolling case, etc.) Part 4.

This is a Beachtek DXA-2T. It's perfect.

A lot of us have really cool DSLRs and mirror-free cameras that have the potential to make great video files. The niggling things that seem to push people back to traditional camcorders and more expensive, dedicated video cameras are things like built-in neutral density filters and inputs that accept XLR connectors from professional microphones. 

Since most people (myself included) tend to be careful with their cash they make the presumption that the lack of XLR connectors is just an issue of cabling interfaces so they go off and buy cables that are XLR on the end that connects with the microphones and an unbalanced 3.5 mm mini-plug on the other. They use the cable as an adapter to get the microphone signal straight into camera and then discover that there is noise, that the gain on the camera needs to be turned way up and that nothing sounds the way they thought it would. At that point they dive into the complexity of using external audio recorders for their sound, shy away from microphones connected to their

Zany Cheap Stuff I Love to Have in My Studio (or in the car, or in the rolling case, etc.) Part 3.

This falls into one of those "What the Hell is This?!" categories.

It's a Boom Pole Holder. So, what the hell is that?

(The part closest to the camera is an Avenger grip head). 

Well, when you decide you are going to tumble down the rabbit hole and find out all about video, at some point you decide that for some stuff you like the way shotgun (super cardioid condenser) microphones sound better than the sound you get from your $600 set of Sennheiser wireless lavaliere microphones. You buy a good shotgun mic and determine that it needs to be about 18 inches from your subject's mouth. You research boom poles. These are poles with a microphone on one end and a sound recording crew member holding onto the other end. The goal is to aim the microphone at the talent's mouth while

Zany Cheap Stuff I Love to Have in My Studio (or in the car, or in the rolling case, etc.) Part 2.

I'm not sure what to call this thing but it's not too expensive (unless there is a Leica version...). 

Okay, it's a Movo Photo HVA 20 Heavy Duty Adapter.

This one is around $19 and it's a life saver for anyone who needs to put a microphone and a small light or mixer on to of their DSLR (or RX10iii) and still be able to look into the view finder. I bought it after a bout of extreme frustration with the way microphones have to sit on camera hot shoes. They always stick out the back, about two inches above the view finder. This means you end up

Zany Cheap Stuff I Love to Have in My Studio (or in the car, or in the rolling case, etc.) Part 1.

Leitz Table Top Tripod. Vintage. 

I am aware that there are lots and lots of table top tripods floating around in the photo-universe-inventory. I've played with a fair number of them. My favorite is the one up above. The head and the legs are two separate pieces. I don't think the basic design of the legs has changed in decades. I bought mine about 25 years ago and have found it to be indestructible and strangely friendly. 

When you loosen the wing nut on the bottom of the legs they can all be pulled around together (like the legs of a C-Stand) so you can pack the tripod flat. The head on this particular unit is not the one I got with the legs in my initial purchase. This head predates my more modern ball head by ten or twenty years. There is only one major difference between the two heads.