Equipment Lighting Test Day

Today is the start of my second full week in Saint Louis. I had this little app on my iPhone that I was using to countdown the days until the move when I was still in New York and I realized that after it hit zero, it changed over from “days until” to “days since”. I was going to trash it, but then I decided to just let it keep clocking away. In any case, it is Day 13 today, and I felt it was high time to make sure that all of my equipment is functional. I also wanted to make sure that everything was in the correct place, nothing was missing, and that I would be able to do what I need to do on a shoot. There is nothing worse than getting to a shoot and realizing that a piece of equipment is either broken or missing.

In my experience, the only way to truly make sure that you have everything in your bag and that everything is working is to stage an actual photo shoot, from start to finish. It is one thing to look at your bag and go through the inventory, and another to take everything out, build a set and make some pictures. This is especially the case when working with kits you haven’t used as much as others, or maybe kits you thought you knew but haven’t used in a while.

Last week I needed to make a quick head shot of Xina for her lab website, and when I pulled out my speedlight kit and built the set, I realized I was missing a few crucial items. I went online and ordered what I needed, and when everything gets here I’ll run through another test shoot, just to be sure. Today I unpacked and tested my big light kit, which includes a couple of Alienbees. In the past I’ve always used the Alienbee radio system, but my transmitter battery died, and I’m using PocketWizards these days anyway. After I’d set up the AB800 with a softbox and had it in place, I realized that the Alienbees take the small PC cords, while my other monolights take the large connector. Turns out I don’t have the correct cord to use with my PWs. Not a big deal, I have a standard sync cord and made it work, but if I’d been on a shoot I’d have been in trouble since that particular sync cord isn’t always in my lighting kit. It illustrates the importance of real world testing versus just checking things off an equipment list (which is important too). As a side note: you should always have a couple of sync cords handy when you go on location. You never know when you’re going to get interference from some outside source messin’ with your pocket wizards. Nothing beats a direct cable in a pinch.

So I hauled everything out into my fantastic new space and got to work. If you’ve never worked in your own studio space, there is nothing better than having space to move around when building a set, and the fact that it’s my apartment makes it even better. I turned on some tunes, and spent the morning and afternoon testing equipment and playing with various lighting setups. Unfortunately I only had one really funny lookin’ model to work with today, so your mileage may vary. You know what I love about photography? You can even make a big tub of goo like me look like he’s got muscles just by using light (and conveniently hide his belly in shadow while you’re doing it). Lemme tell you something, photos can, and do, lie.

Nothing like spending the day taking pictures of yourself to make you feel like a narcissist.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 12th, 2010 at 5:32 pm and is filed under Workflow. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.