We told you last week about the Cannes Lions Festival in France, which just ended on Saturday. All of the ways we communicate with each other, and sell products, were celebrated and honored. And toasted to, we will admit. Nowhere else but the Riviera will we drink Rose
OK, not such a tough conference when it’s held on the Cote D’Azur.
The tough part becomes how to cover it photographically and what kind of gear to bring.

The main gear is DSLR with a good traveling lens, like a 28-300mm Nikon coupled with a D7000
2 slots of SD goodness and you are shooting for a loooong time, including video.
And even though you may be surrounded by crowds, there are moments you have to reach in to see. Sure they know you are there, but the moment needs to breathe and this lens gives you the distance to remain discreet.

After a week long bike race for the Fireflies charity, a dad is reunited with his happy child.

Then comes the ancillary cameras: GoPro, Nikon P7000, and the pocketable Canon S95.
The GoPro worked hard for some time lapse here, and unless you’re willing to strap this baby on ( and we have!) you miss one of the best features, which is the ability to capture action in full HD in tiny package.
Now for the mid range camera, the Nikon P7000
with the 200mm throw for a nice lightweight, walkaround camera, when your hanging with friends and things are pretty relaxed. We only say that because the camera will always be out and ready
We have a penchant for photographing meals and this unit, with a distinctive, simple, focus area selector, is the winner:

Some of the best pizza @ La Pizza. go figure.

Then there is the nighttime camera. Parties, events, sometimes requiring a suit jacket, call for a small discreet unit that still gives you a high quality, workable image.
Say hello to one of our new best friends, the Canon S95.
With an f 2.0 lens, it shoots RAW, fits in a front jeans pocket or inside suit jacket pocket, this camera was made for the night.
Perfect for the FB postings, non-intimidating and a solid flash:

Erin & Kelly at the Carlton

And if you are at a party that may include moshing, and a DSLR is just too big, slip this S95 in and out of your pocket, to catch the moment and the protect the camera.

Massive Music Party on the beach

When we travel, the whole kit goes into our ThinkTank Airport International Roller Bag, and has been for about 3 years.
Here is the current list of contents:
Xrite Passport Color Checker
Cables
Card readers (yep, plural just in case)
MacBook Pro
Joby Gorillapods
Speedlight
Rogue Flashbenders
Extra batts and chargers
A 20mm prime lens
ThinkTank Pocket Pixel Media Wallets
Wiebetech Tough Tech Duo RAID array for 2.5 in. drives (first time in kit and sticking to it)
Headphones, iPhone
Mi-Fi card
energy bars
Cinnamon gum (gotta be considerate to those in close proximity)

Once at the travel destination, out comes a backpack which has been folded flat in the suitcase, and the daytime gear discreetly travels that way.

Now be sure to give your file names some distinctive code, so you can sort images per city or event.
And make sure the dates are good.
More than once we’ve had images go missing, only to find them at some factory set date and time, in the middle of about 66K images. Not a fun deal, but always fixable in Lightroom.

There you have. A mid-size travel kit with back-up systems for data and image capture.
Like we say. ” The right Tool for the Right Job”

We do have a selection of more images on our Flickr page. If you have questions about any of them, please feel free to contact us.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 29th, 2011 at 10:06 pm and is filed under Photo News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.