So, in a couple of weeks, I start a second photographic job, working for the local news paper “The Examiner”.
“The Ex” as it is often called, has a very long and illustrious history, a history that it earned through good old fashioned graft with integrity.
News papers these days are stuggling to stay relevant, but like retailers, if they stick to what they do well, then enough will stay strong until things “settle”, and there is always room for at least one representative in this space.
The work will be similar to my school job, which is still my priority. It will be diverse, requiring adaptablility and creativity in equal measure and like any job, there will be an adjustment period.
The “shape” of the work however, will be quite different.
At the school, quantity is accepted, detail is supplied by them and even attention to editing is done for me. I can also indulge my creative tastes as long as I get the shots that are mandatory.
For the paper, captioning and relevance is key. An image without an accurate caption or connection to a story angle is effectively unusable, no matter how good it may be. I will be required to take more set-up images, something that would have horrified me a few years ago, but has lately become second nature.
Growth, adjustment, flexibility, humility and an open mind will be needed.
To smooth my road, I have decided to run two kits, each complete and (almost) exclusive of each job. The idea is to get into reliable, separate habits in each dynamic, without having to switch gear or share a single kit that will almost always need to be adjusted for different jobs. The last thing I want is to carry around too much or worse, leave something behind.
With the school I basically pick my kit, then choose my bag. No real harm is done if I miss something other than a mask, batteries, ID or memory cards, which I always have backups of in a little first packed emergency pack. For other jobs I tend to over pack, ready for anything. With two very different styles of work needed, I think it wise to work less reactively.
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The news paper kit will be a “pro” kit, covering my maximum capabilities with minimum fuss.
EM1x mated to the 40-150 Pro with optional 1.4x TC. This gives me my best stills performance, good run and gun long lens video and weather sealing/ruggedness to a very high level.
A G9 with the 8-18 Leica. This will be my premium video camera, but will also be doing genuine dual duty with its recently discovered superior stills quality. The 8-18 will perform better on a Pana, will provide a solid 16-95 equiv range in FHD video and is also weather sealed. To me, the G9’s seem to be just a hair below the EM1x in build and features, about equal in image quality and an equally slight notch above the EM1 Mk2’s in all but stabilising and video AF. The big bonus with the G9 is the custom setting flexibility. I can mimic all of my other G9’s video feature sets in the five custom selections, then totally re-configure it for stills.
Two very different cameras will hopefully not be an issue as their roles are very specific and their similarities (the “nubbin”, physical hardness, size and more direct on body controls) are maybe more in line than I first realised.
I have the versatile, universal Camvate cage which can fit either the G9 or EM1x by simply changing out the stems.
Added to these will be my 25mm and 45mm primes. The 25mm fills the gap between the zooms and adds a decent close-up/small group portrait lens, the 45 adds a true “Bokeh” lens and I have two of these. I may add an EM10 to these to cut down on lens swapping, but that will likely be unnecessary.
The biggest filter thread is the tele at 72mm and the wide lens is 67, so a couple of 72mm ND, Cinebloom and polariser filters will cover both lenses with a step ring for the Leica.
The 300mm will likely get the most use in this kit for sports etc.
The OSMO pocket will add gimbal stabilising and hopefully the whole kit will be used.
Mics are less critical, so my neglected “little” mic kit will be employed comprising a Movo shotgun and LAV, Neewer and Rode shotguns and the Zoom H1n as separate recorder or interface. I can even split a pair of them into the Zoom for group interviews.
I will assign the TTL Godox flash kit (860 + 685 + controller) and a small Olympus fill-flash to this kit.
A small 5-in-1 white balance/mini reflector panel will round it out.
The whole lot (or what I would need at any one time) can just fit into the Domke F802 with optional pouches, but I have also just ordered a Crumpler Muli 8000 on clearance (see the Fate is a friend post). This bag is meant to be two inches longer and an inch deeper, so the slightly cramped Domke may have an alternate. The Domke excells with multiple small to medium sized items, but struggles, being a satchel, with “big rig” cameras. The EM1x with mounted tele is stretching the friendship a little, and cramps other gear. The Muli may also allow me to pack the 300mm which I struggle with in the Domke.
It also takes a laptop internally in a well padded compartment.
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The school kit will change quite a lot, but will hopefully still be fully viable, afterall, this is the gear that got me here in the first place.
2x EM1 Mk2’s (one gripped), will be rotated or occasionally used together for sports and some hand held video. These will take long lenses, chosen from 45 or 75mm primes (low light/maximum Bokeh), 75-300 premium kit for reach or 40-150 kit lenses. These are all strong performers and compliment each other.
Ironically, lenses like the 75mm were often left behind because of the weight and bullk of the 40-150 Pro, but the slower aperture kit level zooms, which are strong in every other area except build and light gatheing need the fast primes for indoors etc. and allow for them to be carried, even with their own camera bodies.
Whenever these lenses get a run, nobody ever complains about the image quality and I am constantly surprised how hard it is to tell. The 40-150 performs better than it should in low light showing strong micro contrast, the 75-300 handles very bright light well and the 75mm is my go-to for indoor sports, strong Bokeh, sheer quality and candids. They have all been neglected lately simply because it is easier to just pack the pro lens. I can pack all three for the same bulk as the pro lens.
2x EM10 Mk2’s which will also be rotated. These are my preferred cameras for standard to wide angle lenses, simply because their screens tilt back, rather than rotate around for touch focus operation. If one dies, I will replace it with a similar camera if I can just for that. The main lens will be the kit 12-60 Panasonic or 17mm, but the 8-18 may be borrowed out of the paper kit or the 12-40 pro from the video kit if I know I will need their special capabilities. There is even a leftover 14-42 EZ.
2x EM5 Mk1’s will be used again in rotation for primes until they fall over. The sensors in these handle artificial lighting I feel much better than the EM10’s giving me less trouble with white balance and nice, tight high ISO “grain”. The 17, 45 and 75 all work well on them and I have batteries to burn here (6 at last count), which need to be cycled regulalrly. I am not expecting miracles here, but I will flog these until they stop going.
The red Pen Mini on a 60” strap can be used as a handy cross-body camera and a novelty for the younger kids. It is also my favourite from the hip street shooter with the 17mm.
Bags for this kit have been fun to organise and an opportunity to tidy up some long running issues. Rather than just get another F802, the easy fix, I have been looking at my many, many other bags.
I was tempted to get another 802 for my school kit, but while searching for the recommended Tenba insert, it occurred to me to try the insert I have in some other bags and it fit in many well enough, so I just went with the insert. I may still use the F802 if the Crumpler or something else works out better, so this may be moot.
The Filson Camera Field bag has been “fixed” by taking the 30+ year old hard base-board and newer insert liner from my ancient Domke F2 (now used to carry cables etc for my lights). The problems of sag and poor insert choices now gone, it has become a contender for school camera bag.
Love/hate personified. Hard to find a nicer “retro” look bag, but like many, it falls down on practicality. This is a prime example of a bag made for a kit (Leica M6 and two primes maybe), just not my kit. Maybe if I do a long term project some day, using a Pen F and three primes it will be ideal, but in a practical work world, it is really an enthusiasts bag.
My Tokyo Porter satchel, a very comfortable and roomy bag, and the classy Filson Medium Field are sharing a Tenba insert and the Domke F3x, Crumpler Light Delight, Turnstyle 10L and LP Pro Tactic 350 will all get a go as needed. The big body attached to big lens dynamic is gone from this outfit, and along with it, a lot of the issues these bags struggled with.
The Porter. An impulse buy on our first trip to Japan, this bag has returned there more than once as my best option. Like the Filson, if you want to mesh a day bag and camera bag it is ideal, but recently I have found it doubles up as a serious camera bag, using a Tenba insert. It has much the same dynamic as the F802, just with different pockets.
The F802 provides 2 to 4 large rectangular pockets and two “slip” pockets inside and out. The Porter has one enormous front pouch of similar capacity, better for single large, flat items and it has several useful small pockets inside. The main compartment also has a little more room than the F802 which allows for the insert and some other bits.
Video, which is more controlled and serious in this environment is handled by a dedicated G9 with rig, 12-40 Oly pro (24-200 f2.8eq in FHD) and 25mm antique Pen lens. I will take other lenses from the above kit as I need.
For support, my Zoom/Lewitt mic kit, dedicated lights and mods require their own storage solutions, but the camera and lenses go into the Neewer backpack with as much else as I can squeeze.
I have tentative plans to add a 35-100 Panasonic f2.8 lens, which would go a decent way to replacing the 40-150 Pro lens in these kits, while keeping the filter sizes under the magic 62mm, quality up and the bag strain low, but first I will see how this kit serves me.
Flash is handled by using none (fast primes and ON1 No Noise) or the YN kit. I cannot praise this kit enough. Recently I shot over 700 images with a single YN and single set of Eneloop pro batts, all with the flash in one hand, the camera and controller in the other. I needed to do this to avoid some horrible reflected flare from my environment, which put paid to my 1 stand-1 light idea (no room to move it), and it worked a treat.
I even managed several consecutive 1/1 power shots bounced off the ceiling, of an entire stairway at about 10mtrs and that was after a couple of hundred shots already. It just popped and popped, with me manually shifting from 1/16 to 1/4 power depending on the ceiling height, with no image falling out of processable parameters.
The event was a “Wigging It for Cancer” gala ball. An awesomely bad hair day all round.
A lovely left over is the Pen F, which I will reserve for personal and studio use. It has a gorgeous, clean high-res sensor which seems sharper than the earlier phase detect pixel ones, but it lacks any AF tracking, has mediocre low light performance and banding at high ISO’s in silent shutter mode, so for studio use or personal street/travel with primes it is perfect.
I will pilfer lenses, bags and accessories as I need for this one.
It helps to talk up loud some times, to express ideas and make plans, then put them out there.