New Lenses = Kid in a candy store. Packing for an out of town trip = Kid in Time Out.

I'm grateful to have good work, but part of that good work is the occasional shoot out of town. When I am in my studio I can turn around and grab another C-Stand. I can choose three different thicknesses of net material to bring down a pesky highlight and I can browse through the equipment case to find just the right lens. If I need more power it's at my fingertips --- more or less. But there is a comfort to working on your home turf that can rarely be beat. 

Now, if the out of town shoot is someplace like Johnson City, or Wimberley, Texas; or even San Antonio, it's not very far from my comfort zone. Having grown up in Texas and spent considerable time here I like going places in my car. The car means I can bring a very healthy subset of the studio's equipment bounty, including things like sandbags, ten extra stands, the biggest soft boxes and even a couple of computers. Lights? We can probably get most of them situated for a road trip if we put the back seats down in the Honda CRV. 

The situation in which everything falls apart for me is the airplane journey. Yikes. You really, really have to think through what you're going to shoot and distill down what you take, but there is really only so much you can cut till you get to the bone. 

Ben and I are heading out of town tomorrow. We'll be at that wonderful Austin airport at around 6 a.m. in the morning for an 8 a.m. flight to Baton Rouge. We'll be gone for three days and we'll be shooting outside in what may be the three hottest days of Summer 2016. Hello high pressure dome!

I'm not worried about Ben. He's been running the trail around Lady Bird Lake at 2 or 3 in the afternoon lately. If he can run in a straight 102 degrees for a few miles I think he'll be fine standing in the shade handing me lenses and such. But what I am worried about (perennially) is just what to pack. 

We'll be shooting two lifestyle set ups with a single person in each, and one hero shot with two people. I'm bringing along scrims with white diffusion to put over the tops of my subjects to tame the direct sun and we'll buy some one gallon water jugs to use as improvised "sandbags" to hold them in place. I'm bringing a big umbrella which can do double duty as a shoot through or as another light blocker/diffuser. I never go anywhere without a tripod either. 

We've got three battery powered flashes and a bunch of radio triggers and every lens has a companion 3 stop neutral density filter to tame the ambient light in order to make fill flash practical. We've got two checked bags and two carry ons. It's bare bones. But that's the nature of having to fly on smaller, regional jets....

I thought about driving to Baton Rouge but it's nine and a half hours of solid driving and I just couldn't get excited about trudging through southern highways in high heat season. Someone's tire fragments are always headed for my windshield, even on cool days. We'll make it through and if we forgot anything we'll improvise at the closest Home Depot. But gosh golly, it takes me all day to pack for one of these because it's a bitter process of eliminating layers of safety nets...

I hope everyone is up to date on the new TSA policies for lithium batteries. When they are as tiny as the batteries for the Sony A7 series cameras you can bring as many as you want but they have to travel in your carry-on luggage; not in checked!!!  Apparently, they want the batteries readily available in case the batteries spontaneously burst into flame and need to be extinguished before imperiling the aircraft. You are limited to two bigger batteries but it shouldn't be a show stopped for most camera users. Now, my video buddies with their huge Anton Bauer batteries may have to devise some new work-arounds. Just thought I'd give you a heads up. Google the specifics. Or Bing them if you are some sort of Google conspiracy theorist. 

Packing sucks because your constant two thoughts (at least mine) are: Will the airline destroy my gear? And, Will I have to gate check that bag full of cameras? Either way you'll be scrambling to make your assignment work....  But, on to the light side...

Some people like nice Bordeaux wines and some people love fine chocolate but I have a soft spot (a sweet tooth?) for new lenses. I won't walk away from chocolate or wine either but the lenses are generally the bright spot for me. 

I asked about Rokinon lenses in my last post and I got some good replies. In my brief hiatus between the last post and now I managed to order a new lens from Amazon.com and also pick up a lens on my list (used) from Precision Camera here in Austin. 

So, what's new in the ole camera bag? Well, first I should say that neither of the two new arrivals will be going with me to Baton Rouge. They are too heavy and too "single-use-y" to make the distillation/packing cut, and besides, I'd already figured out my packing strategy for cameras and lenses before the new lenses arrived. 

The first in the door was the Rokinon 135mm t2.2 Cine lens. A couple reader comments sparked my interest and when I started looking around a mint specimen turned up on 14 miles from the front door of the studio. I drove out yesterday and picked it up and then spent an hour aiming it at various things and snapping away. On first blush I have to say that it's pretty darn sharp wide open and, used fairly close, the depth of field thing that this lens does is outrageous. Almost like one side of a hair I focused on was in focus but the other side wasn't (hyperbole alert). Seriously though it's a  keeper and I was happy to find the cine version since it's a good choice for me to use as an interview lens. 

It's big and bulky and should have a tripod mount when used with the pixie Sony cameras but that's my only gripe. I'm sure you'll start to see endless portraits here on the VSL blog that have been shot with this lens. A good expenditure of $450. 

The second lens arrived today, right in the middle of the stress-filled packing drama. I put the box aside until about an hour ago (hopefully just before dinner...) When I finally had time to open the box and take a peek. It's the Sony E mount version of the Rokinon 100mm f2.8 Macro lens. I wanted one to shoot a job that's coming up on Friday; a full day of photographing teeny, tiny glass ampoules. With even teenier-tinier labels affixed to them. It's similar to a job I shot two years ago and, at the time, I was laboring along with a 50mm macro lens and desperately wishing I had a longer macro for a bit more stand off from the product. You know, in order to really get the lighting right....

The Rokinon clicked all the boxes. When I finally had time to play with it I was impressed at the build quality but much more impressed by the sample images I started shooting (locked down on a stout tripod....). The websites always like to moan and groan about wide open sharpness and wide open corner stuff but I have to say that I don't think I'll use this lens at anything but f11 or f16 on this job. That's what is needed to get enough depth of field to keep things in focus. We can't all be shooting glamorous, wide open shots all the time....

I'll do a bit more testing when I get back into the studio on Thurs. but so far it looks like another winner. 

The two new additions should keep me interested for a bit longer.... 

anyway, I'll be out for three days and I'm probably NOT going to take an iPad or a computer. I'll just focus on the job and a little HDMI monitor. I'll catch up on Weds. evening. Hope you stay cool and have a great start to your week!