{"id":1643,"date":"2015-04-22T07:25:47","date_gmt":"2015-04-22T06:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/?p=1643"},"modified":"2015-04-22T09:56:06","modified_gmt":"2015-04-22T08:56:06","slug":"the-right-equipment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/?p=1643","title":{"rendered":"The Right Equipment"},"content":{"rendered":"
by Cath and Ian Humes<\/pre>\n
\"skyepano-03-1024x323\"<\/a><\/p>\n
This includes both photographic equipment and personal clothing.\u00a0 As the saying goes, there is no bad weather just bad clothing.\u00a0 Some of the most spectacular scenes happen at the in-between times just after the shower as the sunshine breaks through.\u00a0 If you wait for the rain to stop it will be too late to get the image as it will be happening while you are setting up.<\/p>\n
As part of the Glencoe and Isle of Skye\u00a0Workshop we have a suggested list of photographic equipment and recommended panoramic heads to help you with what to bring.\u00a0 I have always said that it\u2019s best to be limited by your ability not your equipment.\u00a0 There are few things more infuriating than seeing the shot and knowing that you can\u2019t capture it because your equipment isn\u2019t capable of it.<\/p>\n
We were up on a wet and windy hillside on Skye back in 2004 photographing waterfalls.\u00a0 To get there we had just struggled up a steep incline that was basically a 45\u00b0 bog, squelchy at every step, running with water, held together by long grass and bloody mindedness (not one of our tour locations as there are more accessible waterfalls).<\/p>\n
Cath was using her new pistol-grip tripod head and it seemed to be working well to start with.\u00a0 However as the weather changed and the liquid content of the wind increased so did the performance requirement on the equipment.\u00a0 Strangely, shops don\u2019t let you douse and\/or freeze their equipment before buying it.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately the weight of the camera and lens pairing exceeded the friction on the now wet pistol grip and as you watched you could see it slowly sagging as were her spirits.\u00a0 Long exposures became impossible with this unforeseen equipment failure.\u00a0 We tried various things but we could both tell it was game over.<\/p>\n
\"Brides-Veil\"<\/a><\/div>\n
Canon 1DS Mk3, 70-200mm f2.8L IS at f8 at 1\/160, ISO 100, Raw, 10:33 October 8th<\/pre>\n
To top it off the weather got worse, the wind blew and the drizzle grew up into grumpy rain that came at us horizontally (it was late October and an early winter storm was on its way after all).\u00a0 There\u2019s not a lot of shelter up here on the moors, low growing heather, coarse grass, tussocks, rocks and photographers.\u00a0 The moors are soft and squelchy until you drop something delicate and find one of the hard bits.\u00a0 Bleak and barren, great for photography but not good for finding shelter, but the whiter than white sheep seem to manage as over decades or centuries they had kicked out a hollow behind an overhanging rock. Over that time they have made just enough space to get out of the wind and rain and wait for the squall to pass, they are not as stupid as they look.<\/p>\n
On the way back to the car I found a discontented wife sheltering in the hollow, lightning and acid spicing her words as she railed at the pistol grip.\u00a0 The solution to this disaster; buy another Acratech ball head, small, light and reliable.\u00a0 Mine has worked for me for years, looks like nothing else and I have no complaints.\u00a0 Even after having to import it from the USA and pay the painful import duty to get it into the country it has been a star performer.<\/p>\n
You know a piece of equipment is good when you swear by it.\u00a0 The follow on from, \u201cYou should be limited by your ability not your equipment\u201d is that if you aren\u2019t, and your equipment surpasses your ability you have a responsibility to improve.\u00a0 If you are able to do more things, then you should<\/em> do more things.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great motivation to try and push what your equipment can do.\u00a0 You take better pictures and it also makes you a better photographer.\u00a0 It also makes for a great reason for buying the next item on the wishlist.<\/p>\n
All Images Copyright \u00a9 2015 Cath and Ian Humes. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by Cath and Ian Humes This includes both photographic equipment and personal clothing.\u00a0 As the saying goes, there is no bad weather just bad clothing.\u00a0 Some of the most spectacular scenes happen at the in-between times just after the shower as the sunshine breaks through.\u00a0 If you wait for the rain to stop it will …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1643"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1658,"href":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1643\/revisions\/1658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.catherinehumes.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}