I have a routine when it comes to an upcoming shoot. I try to do the same things over and over so that I don’t forget anything, because many times I’m further from home than normal and I don’t have anyone who can bring me any missing components. Prior to getting ready, I take my gear out and decide what body and lenses I will need. Will I need extra batteries and SD card? Do I need my remote shutter? What about a flash? Once I determine what I need I clean the lenses and pack the bag I will be carrying it all in.
That scenario happened this past Thursday as I had an arena shoot with Lynyrd Skynyrd and I was using two camera bodies and two lenses; one long and one wide. When I returned home I emptied my bag and downloaded my photos. All was well……
Until……Saturday evening comes along and after spending the day cleaning house I started to get ready for an event I shoot for every other month during the fall/winter months; The Cape Coral Bike Night. Nothing unusual, I grabbed my bad and headed out the door. I completely forgot to go over my checklist of what I would need, because I figured I had my gear from Thursday still in the bag. Nope, I get ready to shoot and all I had were two camera bodies and no lenses. Panic sets in, then I realized I could still shoot the band, but use my iPhone 7 and shoot through Lightroom in RAW. If there had been national acts playing I would have taken the time, run back home and retrieve the lenses I needed. But instead I really had to pay attention to my camera/phone settings to get the images I was looking for. I shot wide as I new those images would be best, and I set my phone’s ISO to 400 and shot at 1/250 sec. The camera lens is F1.8 so it’s fairly good in low light, thank goodness! Were these my best images? No of course not, but they were usable and I was able to salvage the night and it was fun thinking out-of-the-box instead of relying on great camera gear. Let me know what you think, did I nail it with the iPhone?
