Preflight Checklist

A good friend of mine is a private pilot, and getting into the air is his escape – a freedom – from gravity and everyday life. It’s also a weekend ritual (weather and family permitting): Arrive at the airport at O’ dark-30. Pull plane out of the hanger. Check fluid levels. Inspect all control surfaces… and that’s before buckling up in the cockpit.

Once in the plane, he pulls out a printed checklist, and every item it dutifully inspected, checked or put into place prior to starting the engine. As he says, “I’d rather check and double check, ‘cause you can’t just pull a plane over to the side of the sky and lift the hood.”

Good point.

He went on to tell me that being a pilot has influenced him to create checklists for other things in life. There’s one for towing a boat, packing the car for a vacation, winterizing the pool, etc. So while I’m listening to him call out, “circuit breakers in,” and reach for the panel, I start a mental checklist of my gear: Power on. Selector dial set to Time Value. Shutter speed at 1/800^th. Memory cards…

Crap

The SDXC card was seated in its slot, but there was a gaping hole where the CF card should be. In my haste to grab gear, I had forgotten to pluck the card from the card reader in the studio when I completed the previous day’s download. I reached into my pocket and pulled out my spare 32GB card, slid it into the slot and shut the memory card door. I breathed a sigh of relief, told my heart to slow down a few hundred beats per minute, and then cursed myself for being an idiot.

“You okay?” He asked, looking at the beads of sweat on my brow.

“Yeah, just had my heart fall into my left pinky toe,” I noted. “I forgot to put one of the memory cards into the camera. Glad I brought a spare, or I’d be in deep kimchee.”

Checklist complete, a couple of switches flicked into position, and the turbocharged Continental engine rotated, then coughed to life. As the fluids came to temperature, he scanned the gauges and I scanned the camera again to ensure I had everything set. Soon we were in the air, both of us getting our “fix” of being in the air and capturing great images.

A couple of hours later, we were back on terra firma, another checklist in hand. With engine and electronics off, the Cessna was rolled back into the hanger. My friend glanced my way, and with a wink said, “I have a feeling you’re gonna write up a checklist for your gear.”

With a laugh, I replied, “Just one?”

Later that day, I pulled out my laptop and wrote my first checklist. It was pretty basic – one for use when I had to travel inter-island, but it covered darn near everything, from cameras and lenses to chargers and cables. I’ve since developed several checklists that are specific to what I’m going to shoot. I have one for aerials, whales, traveling to the mainland, macros… Heck, you name it, I probably have it. The checklists really come in handy when I’m short on time, and need to be sure I have the right equipment with me to accomplish a particular shoot. And it sure beats getting to a remote location, then realizing you left a particular lens behind.

Last night, I pulled out my Big Island checklist, which has grown to include everything I might need to shoot Kilauea erupting to star trails on Mauna Loa. Some items are piled on the “to be packed” table, and notes written of things to get before I depart. By tomorrow afternoon, I’ll have everything checked of, ready to go and I won’t have to worry about my heart plummeting into my left pinky toe.

The Future Photographer

Participating in art shows and gallery exhibits provides me with an interesting opportunity: Photographer watching. No, I’m not dressed in Real Tree camo, lurking behind trees or lying in thickets of bamboo. I’m not taking notes or talking to an agent through a wrist mic. I’m a casual observer of people with cameras, how they use them and what they shoot. Once in a while, I’ll strike up a conversation with them, and glean a little more information. In the last year or so, I’ve noticed:

1. Why carry a big camera, when an iPhone (or iPad) will do: By far, this is the biggest trend. It seems people in droves are leaving their DSLRs, and in many cases, point and shoot cameras at home in favor of smart phones ant tablets. In a way, you can’t blame them – we’re not getting 4X6 prints made or putting images into photo albums anymore collect dust on our coffee tables (except for a select few). The majority of our shots nowadays are being housed on computers, phones, tablets or in the Cloud. Plus, the cameras built into the latest generation Apple or Samsung products are absolutely outstanding (note to Motorola: The camera in your Razr series is worthless). And there’s another benefit: they’re light weight. Why carry a pack full of photo gear, when you can carry a phone that’s a shade less than four ounces?

2. I want it all, but in a small and affordable package: Bridge cameras – the cross between the ease of a small point and shoot, coupled with a mongo lens (like 24-1200mm range) that’s wrapped in a compact body. Mostly carried by people who used to haul around an SLR and a couple of lenses, the bridge camera provides everything their kit used to, in a compact, lightweight package. Bridges are a jack of all trades, giving you a nice wide angle view for landscapes, and an extreme telephoto for capturing the kids down field at a soccer game. But they’re a master of none, meaning that you’ll get good images, but shutter lag is generally an issue, the telephoto drives are imprecise and they’re slow to focus. You can do a whole lot better with a DSLR and a couple of lenses.

3. Yeah, my camera bag weight 30-pounds, but my images will look great: These are my peeps, their numbers are small, compared to SPSers (Smart Phone Shooters), but they’re a dedicated bunch. They’re the ones with the Lowepro backpack strapped to their backs, carrying a Canon 5D MARK III or a Nikon D800 with a 24-70mm or 16-35mm attached. During the Humpback Whale season, you’ll see a fair share of 70-200 f/2.8 lenses bayoneted to a 1D MARK IV, or a 100-400 f/3.5-5.6 if more range is desired. Once in a while, there are the whale paparazzi with a couple 1Dx bodies, which shoot at a photo Gatling gun speed of 13 fps. One carrying a 400mm DO lens, the other with a 70-200. These select few solidly believe in the “no pain, no gain” ideal – you’ll come back with great shots, but it’ll cost a couple hundred bucks in massage therapy back at the resort, which a small price to pay if you come back with killer images.

So what does it all mean? Well, nothing, yet everything. Photography has moved from silver-smeared glass plates and tin, to all sorts of film, and now we’re capturing images as a mass of ones and zeros. Our darkrooms have transformed from a wet process (with a myriad of chemicals) to one of computers and desktop printers. Our cameras have shrunk from 8X10 film plane to cell phones with a quarter-inch lens.

We’ve seen a transformation of photography that’s unprecedented: From manually mastering the nuances of capturing light, to miniature computers that eliminate the thought process of making images. Our cameras have progressively gotten smaller, yet richer in functionality. Photography’s evolution has brought photography to the masses, albeit today, in-between sending a text or posting to your Facebook page.

What will we be shooting with tomorrow, a year, or five years? Almost anything you can possibly imaging. There will be one thing that will remain constant: The capture of light.