IT'S SPRING Break Out the Cameras!

Spring has sprung, my brothers, my sisters.

On this side of the Equator. (Not forgetting you Bruces and Sheilas down under.)

Every Spring I dismantle and repack the camera bag, charge the battery and the spare battery, make sure there's an empty card in the camera and three extras in the card-carrier in the side pocket, and get out my cheat-sheet and run it down. Once upon a time I used a lot of cameras, so I would write down the basic setup and control parameters for each camera just to jog my memory. It forms a sort of checklist for how I use the camera. You wouldn't think I could forget, especially if it's a camera I use often. However, as I am now a grandfather my brain is of course bursting with wisdom and knowledge, and there is so much of it in there that it has gotten a bit shall we say disorganized. So it never hurts to review. Each item on the checklist appears obvious when I review, each one prompting an "oh yeah" or "of course." But it still helps to do it. I suppose I'm mostly trying to avoid the negative reinforcement: I know what I need to do when I'm out using the thing, and what I don't want is to be out there in the middle of shooting and need to do one of those things and find that the necessary input has somehow, um, slipped my mind temporarily. Anyway you know what a checklist is for.

Deadly photography
I seem to have devolved into the sort of person who watches flying videos, for no other reason than that I keep looking at them so YouTube keeps suggesting them and YouTube suggests them and therefore I keep looking at them. They're inherently dramatic. A surprising number of the ones I've seen seem to involve photography. One particularly sad example is of a newlywed couple who might well have died because they were trying to get a romantic photograph of themselves flying out of Telluride past Bridal Veil Falls, the highest free-falling waterfall in Colorado. For those who might not know, Telluride is in formidably rugged terrain and used to be considered relatively difficult to get to. That a social media picture documenting their honeymoon might have been the young couples' aim on that day is a surmise of the YT host, a former fighter pilot who goes by the handle of Hoover, but you can decide for yourself. Anyway, the point I'm heading toward: pilots run down checklists before each flight; so why not me prior to shooting? There's no such thing as being too big an expert, not that I've ever claimed such a thing. I recall a documentary about a National Geographic shooter that showed him using a packing checklist before setting out for a trip, and he went through it more than once. I don't know if you use checklists.

My checklist just runs down all the camera controls I use when out shooting. It's a small percentage of what the camera will do, but covers all of how I use the camera. Being prepared never hurts.

A convert to the converted
This year another resolution I have is to record the car mileage when I go out to shoot. Often when I go out with the camera, it's exclusively to shoot pictures. I can write off mileage for those trips if I track the mileage specifically and write it all down. I'm not, as I mentioned, the most organized guy on the continent, but I'm going to give that a try this year. Gas has become a significant photography expense since I got my Sigma with the converted sensor.

Speaking of write-offs, I had a weird thing come up this year: I can't write off my phone, but I can write off my cameras, and yet my phone is one of my cameras. I doubt even the IRS knows what to do about that. (I didn't attempt it.)

I also mean to put an ingestion, processing, and Flickr-posting checklist together too, because I don't see any harm in reviewing that as well.

Energy and optimism
I started a rhythm a long time ago during the film and darkroom era...during those years, the temperate months were for shooting, and the dark, cold Winter months were for darkroom work (although I usually did film processing as I went along, because how soon you develop B&W film after shooting it affects image quality). That's meaningless now, and yet one small carryover that has survived in my brain where photography is concerned is a feeling of energy and optimism when Spring comes around. Old habit suggests that it's the time of year you get down to work. Each of these days with lots of daylight is a blessing! Onward.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

Featured Comments from:

darlene: "Checklists have played a vital role throughout my career, a practice I picked up from a pilot! Telluride is a place I want to revisit, but I doubt I ever will. It was a most unfortunate ending for the happy couple. We went to the airport there, but my then-commercial pilot ex said he did not like what he saw, and this came from a guy who had flown throughout South America's mountainous terrain for a decade. A dangerous area, and you need to be more experienced, is how I took his words.

"Soon, I'll embark on a journey to the Ocala National Forest and Paynes Prairie Preserve, accompanied by fellow campers. Paynes Prairie Preserve stands out as Florida's only sanctuary, where wild horses, bison, and gators roam freely. It boasts a diverse population of over 300 bird species. I always take two kits on my little excursions. This time, I will be shooting some of my digital lenses that have been idle for a year (Spring cleaning?). The other will be my old trusty Fotoman 6x17 film camera. I hope to photograph a pano of horses and bison out in the wild. Happy Spring to you, Mike, and to your readers as well. Now I must find my bottle of 'Eau de No-Gator' perfume."

Eric Brody: "I love checklists. Pilots use them, surgeons now use them and photographers should. I make them; I just have a hard time remembering to use them. I occasionally switch camera bags; I have three, one huge (2.2kg), pretty much only for the car and about 50 yards from the car. It holds a lot of lenses. The middle size one (1.7kg) is for most of what I do, namely reasonable photo-oriented hikes and travel. The smallest (1kg) I just got. and it's great for times when I'm willing to go with only three lenses, fewer clothes, and less food and drink. I just made a checklist on my phone for the switch from small bag to the medium one. Remembering the camera body and lenses is a no-brainer—it's the little doo-dahs like batteries, extra cards (rarely needed with 128GB cards), framing card, and all the filters and step-up rings. Now I just need to not be in such a hurry that I either forget the checklist entirely or just do a terrible job using it."

Comments

[Albert Smith]

I guess Jimmy Buffett was right, "Changes In Latitude, Changes In Attitude..." Its April and I know that my cameras will be stowed until late October. My photo season ends when I sweat through my shirt walking out to my car.

I did have a very photographically productive autumn and winter when the temperatures dipped into the 70s and wimpy Floridians put on sweaters.

[John Krumm]

Spring is when I should probably limit my caffeine intake, because all the light is a natural energizer, and I sleep less. I exercise more, and my solar watch finally gets a decent charge.

I've always found it a challenging time for outdoor photography in Minnesota. It's the season of blowing trash and bare limbs, and muddy/icy trails. Probably good for bird photography, since there are no leaves in the way.

As for lists, "A spring wind blew my list of things to do away" -Greg Brown.

https://youtu.be/fOIMpqU-3kg?si=LjOaL6wl4ZR-AwOT

[Phil Stiles]

You may claim as a tax deduction that portion of your cell phone use that is for business purposes. Likewise, your internet account: deductible for the business portion.
https://tinyurl.com/3tsfvx9f

[Tim McGowan]

Mike, I knew a boat yard owner who who made a list of lists in the early spring. Springtime is a very busy time at boat yards.

[Gaspar Heurtley]

When I read how soon you develop B&W film after shooting it affects image quality the loudest laugh just bursted out of me.

Two days ago I found a small cardboard box at the bottom of my fridge, way at the back. Didn’t know what it was, so I opened it.
It had eight (eight!) canisters with exposed but unprocessed 35mm film. According to the labels, I shot them almost 12 years ago.
All made by me, seven HP5 cause I always loved the grain and a single FP4.

[BG]

Spring is a great time to energize your photography. However, if you lived further south, you could spend all year taking pictures of skyscrapers and mannequins.

[Jeff]

Stop photographing in Winter? Some of my favorite times for B&W pics. A full year hobby.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

I suppose you outdoor people do have to pay attention to the weather. It was certainly a concern for the eclipse photos!

[Nigel Voak]

I must admit, Winter is the best period for my Architectural photography. Light is good all day, and the "blue hour", which is good for effect, when buildings are floodlit arrives around five O clock.

An added bonus for me here in Italy, is that the crowds are much smaller ,than in summer.

From June onwards, until September, it gets too hot here to go out and do photography, and the light is harsh and hazy here.

[David brown]

Checklists for cameras! What a great idea! I now own (and use) three (count’m 3) Lumix micro 4/3 camera bodies (plus a 4th I do not use and a P&S that I do). They’re all, of course, different! Never had a problem with film cameras, including the wonderful and highly automated (comparatively speaking) Minolta Maxxum 7. Even my Sony a850 is so similar to the Max 7 that its menus are not difficult. But these newer machines that do so many more things and all of them with multiple variations. Good thing I like the pictures that they spit out!

[Kye Wood]

With a 512gb card in each of my cameras, I read the bit about spare cards as really harkening back to a era bygone. With some fondness I might add.

[Grant]

I'm an old fella with a feeble mind. I need to keep my list short.

F8 and be there.

[robert e]

A checklist is a brilliant idea for cameras. But I wonder: is a generic checklist for digital photography possible? I feel like film photography and darkroom had those, but with so many different UIs, maybe the best we can do for digital is a list of do's and don'ts.

Weirdly, I've been watching flying videos, too, (though not as much now as I did this winter). I found Hoover's channel a bit sensationalist and prefer Juan Brown's "blancolirio" channel for accident analysis. He's a commercial jet pilot. But my favorite flying channel of late is AOPA's (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn). I enjoy their non-bait-y earnestness and combination of great footage and home-made flavor--a kind of folksy, cheery-but-sober advocacy that seems right for general aviation. They just hired a pro to manage their "digital content", so I hope the flavor doesn't change too much. Not a very diverse world, though, G.A.

Good luck with the HQ relocation!

[MikeR]

Checklist- don't fly without one!
I made my own custom ones for the planes I could rent at the local airport. Easier for me to follow, and I could include items missing from the standard ones.
For each of my cameras, I've made little cheat sheets to remind me how I've customized the buttons, and pasted them somewhere on the camera. Behind the flip-out screen is good for the GX8 and the GH5.

Best wishes on the move, and the opportunity to recombobulate. (I laughed at that sign when I first saw it on a trip to Oshkosh)

[David Lee]

I am not a big fan of flying videos but the one youtube channel I really enjoy is mentour pilot.