Don't Let This Happen To You!

Beartown State Park, WV

www.dennismook.com

Let me tell you a short story of how a friend came back from a photo shoot and was really disappointed in his images.  It is a tale of how poor preparation caused, at least disappointment and at most, failure.

Leaving names out, my friend took a long weekend and traveled to a national park to make some landscape photographs.  He arrived late in the day and decided, since he was out of the city and the sky was very dark and clear, that he would try his hand at making some images of stars and star trails.  He set up his tripod, adjusted his camera and spent a couple of hours in the pitch black darkness (always bring a small flashlight, but that is another story) made some terrific images of stars and the Milky Way.

Jump to the next morning. 

Up early and eager, my friend headed out before dawn to get to the area in which he wished to make some early morning images, because as we all know, quality and direction of light is really important.

Now my friend normally shoots on aperture preferred when making landscape images and that is what he did this morning.  He normally sets his lens aperture on F/22, F16 or F/11 to maximize depth of field as he enjoys mainly a wide-angle or very wide-angle images.  (Diffraction limiting of sharpness by setting the camera on such small F/stops is also another conversation)

As the day progressed, he continued his exploration of the area and continued to make images.  Of course he checked his histogram on occasion to insure he was not clipping highlights or shadows, and when it seemed the sensor couldn't handle the dynamic range, he shot multiple images to later merge to HDR. 

Seems like all is going well.  But it wasn't and he did not discover why until after supper when he imported his images and looked at them on his laptop.  He was extremely disappointed with his images and said "I could just kick myself!"  "I should have known better."  Do you know what went wrong and why he was disappointed?  I'll tell you.  After making images the night before, he did not go through any procedure to reset his camera at base settings so he would be ready for his next shoot.  He had cranked up his ISO very high to make the star and star trail images and did not return it to a low ISO for his landscape work the next morning.  His daylong, what he thought was successful, photo excursion was marred by images with a lot of electronic grain.  They weren't smooth and with a long dynamic range as they would be with ISO 100 or 200. 

I see two failures here.  One, he did not conduct a post shoot procedure to clean & inspect his equipment, charge his batteries, and reset his camera settings.  Two, by him not paying attention to his shutter speeds, F/stops and ISO settings while shooting, he did not notice extremely high shutter speeds for his images.  If he did, that in an of itself, would have been a clue that something was amiss.

Yes, I would kick myself also if I found myself in that same situation.  We all should know better, but sometimes we don't.  Here is what I suggest every serious photographer adopt as a procedure each evening after using one's camera equipment.

Cumbres & Toltec Narrow Gauge RR, Chama, NM

After every time you go out and photograph:

1)  make at least 2, but ideally 3 (with one offsite) copies of your images before doing anything else.

2)  reformat your memory card ONLY after accomplishing #1 above.  Check your memory card for any defects before putting it back in your camera or away.  I recommend a Think Tank Photo pouch for memory cards.  Buy 2 if you need more room to store them or for multiple systems.

3)  carefully examine all the equipment you used for any damage, etc.  Check the levers on the camera body and back of the lens.  Make sure the aperture blades open and close smoothly and have no oil on them.  If you have some sort of dried liquid or stain on your glass, use the proper liquid lens cleaner only.  I use

4)  reset all of your camera's settings to a standard, which you should determine.  For example, if you normally shoot at ISO100 in aperture priority, reset your settings every time to those settings.  Then you will instinctively know your camera settings when you next take it out.  Set your F/stop and shutter speed (so if you switch from one to the other, your base setting is already there and you will know what it is), your exposure compensation to 0 or where you find it works best.  Ensure you have reset your flash compensation to "0" or another standard setting.  Reset any auto bracketing or other setting you may have used.  Check your white balance, focus (S or C or Ai Servo) and your shutter release (S Cl, Ch). Check all these settings twice.  What you want to achieve is, in your mind, where every setting in the camera is normally set so you don't have to think too much about what may be on or off, or what your ISO, shutter speeds, F/stops, etc. will be the next time you go out.

For example, I reset my camera to aperture priority, ISO100, F/8, 1/250 sec., flash compensation set to -1 2/3, auto bracketing off, color balance on daylight, RAW files only, exposure compensation set to -1/3, high speed continuous exposures, auto focus on continuous (Nikon's terminology), with my AF-On button only used for focusing.  Additionally, I have my sensor cleaning function turned on to clean the sensor every time I turn the camera on and off.

5)  thoroughly clean all the equipment you used.  Blow everything off (including the rear of your lens) before any cleaning to remove any debris.  If you clean with debris on you equipment, you just rub it in.  Use a soft cloth on your bodies and barrels of your lenses and a microfiber cloth, designed for camera lenses (not eyeglasses) for your glass.  If you don't know the proper way to clean lens glass, there are sites on the Web that will tell you how.

6) clean the insides of your rear lens cap and front lens cap.  Dust will accumulate in there and transfer to the lens or inside the camera body.

7) charge your battery.  Check your spare batteries and refresh their charge if necessary.  In fact, if a battery sits unused for more than 30 days, I pull it out and charge it to top it off.

8) when putting gear away, put it in a dry place with all caps & covers in place.  Dust is not your friend.   Put all your gear in the same place inside one or more cases so a) you know exactly where everything is and, b) you can instantly see if anything is missing.

9)  speaking of missing, make an inventory of all your equipment including serial numbers, model numbers, identifying marks, official manufacturer names, condition and replacement cost.  Keep a copy on your home computer, your iPod, iPad, tablet, laptop or other storage device.  If you find yourself missing your equipment, through theft of just loss, you will have a complete inventory for the authorities.

10)  I'm sure there is something I left out.  If I think of anymore, I'll amend this post.

Thanks for looking.

Enjoy!
Dennis Mook