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Gear

Lesson 5 from: The Ultimate Photo Storytelling Workshop

Finn Beales

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Lesson Info

5. Gear

Take a look at the gear Finn has brought on this shoot: cameras, lenses, storage, bags, toolkit, and an H.
Next Lesson: What is a story?

Lesson Info

Gear

Gear. So I'm just gonna walk you through a couple of - well, lots of my favorite items. Let's start with bags. This is my transit bag. It's a roller bag. It's very heavy. It's full of prime lenses, laptops, cameras, as you'll see in a second, and loading all of this onto my back, oh, is not gonna help me before I start shooting. So once you've rolled one of these bags through an airport, trust me, you won't go back to a backpack. (handle extension noise) So it's lockable on the front. (zipper) Open it up. Whole bunch of stuff on the inside. Batteries. You'll notice they're flipped around. I know straight away that they need charging. Bunch of little tripod adapters here, lens cloths, tape, just for fixing, patch fixing stuff, and here remote triggers, iPhone mophie charger. All important SSD. (zipper) Laptop sits neatly inside. Walkie talkies. Crucial on a shoot like this, talking in between two cars. So I can direct my subject to reverse, go forwards. You know, keep to speed when we'r...

e doing tracking shots, that sort of thing. More hard drives, more backup, back up three times. You want it in three different places. Polarizing filter. Useful for shooting through glass, reducing reflection. (velcro) These are sort of landscape filters, rarely used, but - I'm not gonna talk about them. This is a cable bag. This just keeps all of my flyaway things in check. It's a bit of a mess inside, but I like keeping it in a bag. So just chuck it in, chuck the bag. So there's not a mess in here. Keeps things neat and tidy. Ah, okay. Cameras, let's start with cam - Let's roll on to cameras. I shoot pretty much everything with a Canon 5D Mark IV. I love this camera, and I shoot it with a battery adapter so I can shoot landscape and portrait really, really easily. I couldn't shoot this camera without this anymore. It's big and heavy, but just it's just more comfortable to use. Also stores two batteries in its - in the holder. So that keeps me going all day. Never really have to change a battery on a ship. Lenses. That's a 50 millimeter Sigma Art. This is a 24 millimeter Canon, 35 mill Canon, 85 millimeter Sigma Art, love this lens. Very, very sharp. It's actually sharper than the Zeiss lens and way way cheaper. Big guns, 7200, 2.8 long reach. Nice and fast, useful. Always have it in my bag. I also carry a film camera on pretty much every shoot I go on. I like to shoot one roll of film. This is a habit I picked up off Rich Stapleton from Cereal Magazine. I dunno if you know that mag, but picked that up off him on a shoot in California. And it's just for personal. I like to keep shooting film. I think it keeps my hand in, but also helps inform my grade at the end of the day. A lot of my work is film inspired. So having an idea of like grain and colors is always useful. Okay. So that's my transit bag. Oh, one more thing. Two more things. (zipper) It's got like a passport pouch up here. So you can just easy access that when you're traveling. No digging around deep into a bag. And also in this on the back's kind of fun, nifty - (zipper) Look. So what I tend to do is I use this to transport all my gear through the airport. And once I get to my hotel, or wherever I'm shooting, I'll lock the bag to a solid, unnickable object, and then decant whatever I need to use into this. And this is my day bag. Domke F-2, designed by Jim Domke for use in the Vietnam war. Hasn't changed its design since the seventies, very, very useful, easy access on a shoot. It flat packs. You can take all that out. So I tend to pack that into my hold luggage, small footprint. And then when I get to my destination, take it out, rebuild it, and then just drop in all my lenses like this. So when I'm shooting, I have this on my shoulder, shoot like this, then I can, I don't even have to put my bag down. I can open it like this, rest the camera on here, and then change lenses as I'm going. Very, very fast, easy access. Love it. This is a carabiner clip I've stolen from my son, H. He suggested I take this, actually, on a shoot and I've never looked back since because this is really, really useful when you're working on moving vehicles, boats, whatever. I tend to secure it, my bag, when I'm not using it, to a solid object. You know, I - driving in a car going around a corner, it's very easy for your equipment to like slide about when it's secured to something. Bose quiet comfort headphones, essential for traveling. Sleeping, long planes, long plane rides. This is another thing that I always travel with, is just a simple toolkit with a whole bunch of different screwdrivers, tools, just for fixing stuff on the road. I don't wanna be like hunting around for a toolkit and I can just put that in my case. It's made by iFixit to be cheap but useful. There's also another piece of equipment that I like to travel with but he doesn't always get to come on trips. This is an H, he requires a bit of maintenance, but he's invaluable. Aren't you, mate? Yeah. Nice. Say hello. Okay. That's pretty much it. That's, you know, a wrap up of my kit. Cool. (gentle music)

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Ratings and Reviews

Brent Morris
 

Fantastic My thoughts on the storytelling workshop. The short is; it’s fantastic. The long is I loved all the details covered, from shot types and the ideas behind them to the call sheets and shot lists, and the whole process. I felt like I had a better understanding of how to schedule a professional shoot and I really felt like I had a much better grasp on many ideas and concepts, and I believe I’ve been able to improve my photography with them, so thank you and Finn. It really is fantastic.

Oswaldo Martinez
 

A path to better stories Very happy I got this workshop. Finn and Alex do a great job at teaching highly useful methods and specific advice to help you improve your own work, and more importantly, tell better stories that are meaningful to you.

Tommaso Selleri
 

Simply the best This is simply the best workshop out there on photography and storytelling. Finn is awe inspiring and so real and authentic. A pleasure to watch, a joy to learn from such master. I really hope a volume 2 is coming soon! Thank you for this one!

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