Parade Gear

This is the photo gear I used at yesterday’s 4th of July parade. This is pretty much my standard event photography kit. On the left is a Canon 5D Mark III with a Canon 24-105mm lens. On the right is a Canon 7D Mark II with a Canon 70-300mm DO IS lens. On the rare occasion that I need a longer lens, I take a 100-400mm lens instead of the 70-300mm lens.

Thanks to the smaller sensor in the Canon 7DII and the field of view crop, the 35mm equivalent focal length of the 70-300 lens is 112-480mm. That gave me a total working focal length range of 24-480mm with a small and insignificant gap between 105-112mm.

Why two cameras? Because with only one camera you can miss an important photo while you are changing lenses.  If the cost of a second body is off-putting, you can look for a used, inexpensive camera body that works with your lenses for only a few hundred dollars. If you shoot Canon, look for a Canon “refurb”. More info here.  Or get an inexpensive point and shoot camera with a zoom lens as your second camera.

For most parades the telephoto lens is the one I use the most. I created 48 photos with the 24-105mm lens, 83 photos with the 70-300mm lens and 2 photos with my iPhone for a total of 133 images. I will pick out 9-12 images to send to the local newspaper.

Just in case I needed them, inside the backpack were a 17-40mm lens and a 15mm semi-fisheye lens. I did not need them for this event. The backpack also has a flash unit (which I did not use), spare camera batteries, extra memory cards, a lens cleaning cloth, and other assorted items.

Several years ago during a parade my 24-105mm lens died. I put it in the backpack and used the 17-40mm lens instead. That left me with a big gap between 40 and 70mm (actually 40-112mm), but I managed to get by. For example, if I needed to shoot at about 60 mm, I just got closer to my subject with the 17-40mm lens, or I just cropped the photo later in my computer. As for the lens that died, a computer chip needed to be replaced and it was back in business.

Link

Field of View Crop in Digital SLRs

My Inexpensive, Featherweight “Toy” Camera Kit  – (Canon “refurbs”)