My Gear #43 - Lisa Osta

Early February 2013 I embarked on my second trip to Venice, Italy. This time it was to be a participant in a photo event,

Venice Carnival Photo Tour 2013, instructors were David Nightingale and Bobbi Lane, assisted by Fabio Thian, and Libby Nightingale.

http://www.chromasia.com/training/events/venice_2_13.php

I love Venice! Venice is a magical place, where time stands still, where roads are replaced by canals, where the modern and the ancient mingle and where visitors from around the world gather to enjoy the pleasant decay and oddities of the city surrounded by water.

This was the second time David and Bobbi had given this workshop and the schedule of events looked very interesting to me, it was scheduled to coincide with the Carnival of Venice that has been celebrated in Venice for hundreds of years. Carnival is a sort of Mardi Gras celebration were people dress in period costume and wear strange masks and attend elegant balls, in Venice it goes on for 10 days.

I usually obsess for months about what to bring on my photographic travels, what lenses will work, what bodies, lighting, modifiers, bags etc. Lately I have been traveling to various places around the world or around the USA 2-5 times a year for the purpose of fulfilling my passion of photography (which I have been active in for over 40 years). I always make a packing list, for this trip I knew we would have live models, I new I would be photographing many people. I knew I would be spending long days walking around with camera gear. I also knew I have bad knees and being in Venice means lots of stairs and bridges.

Though the Workshop was 5 days I wanted to get there early and get acclimated to the time difference, also being in February, if there was a snowstorm in NY (as there was while I was already in Venice) it could mean flight delays of up to 2 days so I scheduled to arrive in Venice 2.5 days early as well as leave 1 day later.

My first outing upon arriving in Venice on a bright and sunny early afternoon was with the Olympus OM-D EM5 with 75mm 1.8 lens I went to the center of the very crowded 5 century old nearby Rialto Bridge and photographed down to the gondolas and happenings below the bridge as I waited to meet one of my new workshop companions, Jeff from Dallas. After we had lunch I changed to my D800 and 70-200 and off we went on the Vaporetto (water bus) to Piazza San Marco where we were me with thousands of revilers on a beautiful warmly lit Sunday afternoon, probably the prettiest light of all my days in Venice.

I didn't really understand how it would work out (photographically) but it is really an amazing event for photographers. Hundreds of people dressed up in period costumes, many masked often will stand and pose for dozens of photographers (often all at once). Some people are dressed at dawn and model for photographers and onlookers ever so patiently (to not so patient photographers). It is a mob scene, more of a mob scene than I have ever seen in New York City (more like the density of a 1970's Grateful Dead Concert), but it was an organized well behaved mob. My intuition was correct that in order to obliviate the mob scene a long lens was in order and in most cases in San Marco Square I shot with the Nikon 70-200 VRII and the Nikon D800. I used a Black Rapid Sport Slim strap with the D800 that I just happened to buy on the way to the airport, I thought I had two other Black Rapid straps in my bag but it turned out I left them at home.

We also had our own models dressed in period costumes for several hours in the succeeding days, first we shot "Unplugged" (in natural light) using some reflectors, the next day was "Plugged" so we used my Collapsable Chimera beauty dish as one of the main lights. We used pocket wizards III on the lights, my group used my Nikon SB910 in the beauty dish and one of Bobbi's YN560's as a slash light.

I always carried my Sony RX-1 and iPhone 5 and used both extensively on the trip. I purchased an iPhone SIM card from http://iphonetrip.com for international travel so I could always get online and get information as well as upload images. I also had a Samsung Galaxy SIII android phone with a local Italian SIM card, I bought the SIM for 20 euro. We went out several mornings pre dawn, for that I used my Really Right Stuff TVC-24 Versa Tripod with BH-40 LR Ballhead and L plate on the D800 with 24-70 lens and I used the remote cord to trigger the camera as well as a 3 way bubble level in the flash shoe.

Though I bring all this stuff I can't carry it all so I mostly carried my day gear in the rather small Lowe Pro Flipside Sport 10L AW backpack, in it I could carry the D800 24-70 and 700-200 (packed very tight) along with a few other bits such as memory cards, batteries, cleaning cloths etc. It can carry the tripod on the side and worked well. Obviously I didn't carry all this gear to Venice in that bag. For transport I used the Think Tank 4 Sight Roller and the Think Tank Airport Essential Backpack. Tripod and light modifiers traveled in my checked luggage.I used the Lensbaby for about an hour when we photographed in the Rialto Market, I like to use the lens baby for colorful fruits, vegetables and flowers.

Technology: For travel I bring my 13.3" MacBookAir (2012) with Lightroom, Photoshop and plugins from Nik, RadLab, Topaz, Alien Skin and Tiffen. Two USB 3 Hard Drives 1 2TB, the other 1 TB, several USB 3 Flash Drives for 16-64 GB and The iPad Mini and iPad 3 retina. I don't erase memory cards whilst I travel, rather I move them from one Think Tank Pocket Rocket of clear memory cards to another with face down shot memory cards until I return home and verify that all images are safe and on at least 3 devices, preferably with one offsite.

On this trip to Venice I shot over 4500 images. It was a really fun and great trip, my workshop was wonderful as were all the participants.

Here is a link to my Flickr and 500PX Sets of the Venice trip

http://www.flickr.com/photos/losta/sets/72157632706034032/

http://500px.com/LisaOsta/sets/venice_2013

Nikon D800

Nikon 24-70

Nikon 70-200 VRII

Lensbaby sweet 35

Olympus OM-D with 75 1.8

Sony RX1

Nikon SB910

Light modifiers Rogue Flash Bender with diffusion, Chimera Beauty Dish, reflectors etc

Pocket Wizards III (2)

RRS TVC-24 Versa Tripod with BH-40 LR Ballhead and L plate

Tabletop tripod

remote shutter cord for Nikon

Filters 10 Stop ND, Polarizer, Grad ND 2 stop soft

13" MacBook Air

iPads- mini and iPad 3 Retina

USB 3 Hard Drives X2

USB Flash drives X2

chargers

power strip with USB ports

Optech rain covers-used during a snowy day

Memory Card List

7 X CF 16 GB

4 X CF 32 GB

6 X SD 32 GB

7 X SD 16 GB

2 X SD 8 GB

Also important gloves and alarm clock

What is in the little white and clear bags?

Cables, USB3, Power cables for MacBook Air, iPhone, iPad, micro USB, chargers for cameras and  envelop batteries, headphones, plug adapters, card reader, gaffers tape, lens pen, lens wipe packets, head lamp, allen key, color checker passport, business cards, extra camera plate, filter adapters, ND Grad and extra folding reading glasses.

Brought but ended up not using:

Nikon 14-24mm -too wide for such mass of people and when I shot on tripod it would have made background too distant and for the most part the skies were not that interesting.

85mm 1.8 - lent to someone else in the group for portrait sessions

16mm fisheye - just too much going on in terms of crowds to do a good fisheye image.

X Pro 1 18mm & flash (used RX-1 instead)

12mm 1.8 for OMD

boom

flash cord (was backup for pocket wizards)

Rogue grid (used someone else's)

Flashlight for light painting -didn't get a chance

Sensor cleaning swabs and blower (didn't need but glad to carry incase I did)

Thank you for being involved Lisa.

If you would like to get involved, PLEASE follow all the instructions here.