A preview from the new book!

    Ok, free download week for How to Shoot Your Child's Show Like a Pro is over. If you downloaded it, thanks for supporting me, if you enjoy it please follow up with a good review on Amazon! (If you didn't enjoy it I guess you could post a bad review, but I would rather you contact me privately at bookfeedback@happydragonphoto.com and let me know so I can address whatever issues you found with the book).

    Now it's sales time for real and I get to see if it is going to go anywhere. I have been talking about the book in several online forums and looking around for marketing opportunities (speaking of which, if any of you out there are on a PTA or something with a mailing list, feel free to let me know or to plug me to any parents you think might be interested). A fellow Professional Photographers of America member and amazing photographer, Don Nealious, of DNI Photography, made the suggestion that I post a teaser from the book on here, so here it is. Thanks Don for being an awesome mentor! Without further adieu, here's a quick taste of what you will get in the book:

HELP- THE SHOW IS TONIGHT!!!! I DON’T HAVE TIME TO
READ THIS WHOLE BOOK!

If you just picked up this book because your child is in a show tonight and
you are in a panic, this chapter is for you. Stop, take a deep breath, maybe have
a quick adult beverage of your choice (assuming you aren’t the one driving to
the show) and read this chapter with your camera, the manual for your camera
(if you have it) and your computer sitting right next to you. I will tell you how to
set your camera up and how to take the pictures tonight, then you can come
back later and read the rest of the book to learn the reasons why. For now you’ll
just have to trust me.

It should be obvious why you would want your camera and the manual next
to you, but why the computer? Because I don’t know what type of camera you
have, therefore I cannot tell you how to find the settings I am describing on your
particular brand and model. I use Nikon cameras and lenses- while I will try as
much as possible to use generic terms for settings and features, the examples I
give will be Nikon specific because that is what I am familiar with. I am
assuming you have some sort of DSLR, in which case you should be able to
control all the settings I am going to mention. Don’t worry if you don’t know
what something means, that will be explained later in the book. Oh, and before
you read any further make sure you have downloaded all the images on your
memory card, then format the card in the camera so you’ll have plenty of room.
Once that is done put your battery on the charger so you’ll have a full one (and
hopefully a spare) when its’ time to shoot, then read on.

Here’s how to set up your camera.

Lens: If you only have one lens that came with your camera, it’s probably an
18-55mm. If that’s all you have, that’s what you will use. If you have a longer
zoom (probably something in the 100-300mm range) you should probably swap
out and put that one on the camera. Bring both if you don’t know how big the
theater is or where you will be sitting. For most theaters if you have the
18-55mm you’d want to sit near the front, if you have a zoom that goes up to
200mm or 300mm you should be fine in the back row. Whichever you have,
check it out when you get to the show and choose your seat accordingly. If you
have room in your bag, bring both lenses and pick when you get there and see
what you’re dealing with.

Mode: Manual

Shutter Speed: 1/200 Sec

Aperture: F3.5 (or the smallest number / largest aperture your lens has
available)

Flash: If you have an external flash, leave it off the camera. If you have a
popup flash make sure it it down and stays down. (It shouldn’t activate in
shutter priority mode unless you pop it up manually, so don’t)

ISO: Do a quick search on Google and find out what the highest useable
setting is for you particular camera and go with that, or if you want to be
safe, one setting below that. If you can’t find it quickly enough or don’t even
have time to look, use ISO 1600, that should be safe for any current generation
DSLR. If you have a mirrorless system 1600 is probably also safe. Point and
shoots aren’t as capable at higher ISOs, so I really can’t tell you what’s safe for
yours, you will have to look it up. NOTE- just because you camera has higher
settings available doesn’t mean they are useable in the sense I am talking about
here. You may get a picture with them, but it will be so noisy you won’t be
happy with it. So don’t just go to the highest setting you have.


Focus Mode: Continuous autofocus. If you have a choice of focus point
numbers, pick the option that gives you a small cluster around the point of your
choice. If you can set a focus delay, set it for normal or slightly longer. (This
means if someone walks in front of your child right as you click the shutter the
autofocus won’t try to refocus on them instead of your child)

Metering Mode: Center weighted. The icon for this will probably look like a
dot in between two parenthesis.

Noise Reduction: If your camera has a noise reduction option, turn it on and
set it to normal.

Image Quality: If you have the option and a large enough memory card, set
this to RAW + JPEG Fine, as this will give you the most options to work with
later on. If you can’t do both, either due to memory limitations or because your
camera doesn’t offer that option, stick with JPEG fine for now, especially if you
want to share you pictures tonight or tomorrow. (If you are already shooting and
working in RAW then by all means shoot RAW only)

Active Lighting: Turn it on and set it to the middle setting. (Active D for
Nikon, Active Lighting Option for Canon, not sure for others)

Image Preview: Off. This means you won’t see each image on your LCD
screen after you shoot it. Trust me, this is a good thing.

Vibration Reduction / Image Stabilization: This one varies. If you have the
standard 18-55mm lens, turn it off. If you have a longer zoom, leave it on.
Generally, if your shutter speed is less than the focal length of the lens you want
it on, if it’s faster you want it off.


Shooting Mode: Single Shot

White Balance: If you use Auto your shots will not be consistent. Which
setting to use will be dependent on the lights. If it’s an outdoor show, use either
the sun or cloudy setting. For indoors in a traditional theater, I recommend the
tungsten setting if they use incandescent stage lights or the flash setting if they
are using LED stage lights. If you don’t know the difference, ask the lighting
person if you can, if you can’t find out which it is then use the tungsten setting.

Picture Controls: Standard or Neutral.

Exposure Meter: Not a setting, per se, but if you are not familiar with this
display and how it shows up in your camera make sure you find it and have a
basic understanding of how your camera displays Zero (what camera thinks is
“proper” exposure), Overexposure (+) and Underexposure (-) values. If your
camera lets you, set this to read in 1/3 stop increments. You manual should tell
you what it looks like and where to find it on your camera display.

Ok, now your camera is set, let’s talk about how to actually shoot the
show.



   Ok, that's it for the free teaser, for the rest you'll have to buy the book! I promise there will be some actual photo based updates soon, but until my ship gets back to shore I don't have the bandwidth to upload images, so you're stuck with getting the thousand words instead of the picture.

I'm an Author!

I posted a while back about new projects, one of which was a book. It's now out, and I have to confess I am taking a certain amount of pleasure in actually seeing myself up on Amazon as an author. More later on everything going on, still suffering from limited connectivity while traveling, but check the book out, would love to get some reviews, it's free until July 25th. I expect to have good connectivity again in a week or so for another substantial update!

http://www.amazon.com/Shoot-Your-Childs-Show-Like-ebook/dp/B00LYQ8B6O

Rainbows, Magical Mysteries and a week in paradise!

    I have been incommunicado for a while, because I have been out to sea with no ability to post images or make blog posts, but I spent the last week on a port visit to Oahu. Next week I am out to sea and offline again for another month or so, figure I better knock out an update while I can, because a lot has been happening.

    Let's start with the trip out to Hawaii. Took our time because we had lots of flight ops to do for training before we got here. While I was out to sea, I got some editing catchup done. I also finished the rough draft of the text for my first book. That's right, if all goes well I will soon be the proud author of my first e-book. A while back I wrote a longer post on shooting aerial performers for another blog, which didn't wind up using it as far as I could find. I was kinda bummed, but after a bit of looking around on line and at book stores, I realized there was a niche I could fill if I adapted the post. I couldn't find anything targeted at parents who were trying to take their cameras and shoot their children's school plays, dance recitals, and the like. So I decided to re-work and expand the post into something a parent with a DSLR, but not much photography knowledge, could use to take better pictures of their kids shows. Figure if I can crack the marketing mystery there should be a good niche for it to fill, and since I have nothing but time while I am sailing circles in the water, it really doesn't cost me anything so as long as anyone buys the book, it'll be a profit. All I have left to do is edit the text, insert the images, and format it. Hopefully by the next time I get to an internet connection it will be ready for upload! 

   The second thing I did is put up a fund raising page for myself. I am pretty much at the limits of what my 5 year old computer is capable of when it comes to editing images. Even though it is maxed out RAM wise for what it is, it takes me about ten times as long as it should to edit images because I have to wait for the edits to catch up, especially when using the insanely high resolution images that come from the D800. I can't really afford to upgrade, but if I want to keep shooting for free and providing images to my friends, I can't afford not to. So I decided to try and toss it out into the universe and see if the people who I have been doing all the free shooting and editing for would maybe be willing to help me out a little in return. So far it's been a bitter disappointment. Only one person has contributed at all. I was hoping for a little bit better response, but I guess people really don't know how much time it takes away from my family working on their images. With my current setup, for example, just doing noise reduction on 200 shots from a show takes me around 5 - 6 hours. And that's before doing anything else to the images. Oh well, I am going to have to be a lot more selective in the free jobs I take on in the future I guess. I knew I would have to make that decision at some point, I just hoped to push it off as long as I could, but maybe that's now.  I've been making the argument to myself that it's been building a fan base, which it has, but it sure hasn't led to any paying gigs yet, so not sure there is much point in it anymore, even though I enjoy going and shooting the shows. There are a few people who, while not necessarily able to give back money wise, I know they do send anything my way they can and return the favor as best as they are able, if you are one of those friends, don't worry, I'll still shoot for you any day. 

     The next big thing that has happened is that I have been accepted as an apprentice by The Arcanum, which promises to be an awesome experience. Basically, it was set up as an alternative to traditional photography schools/classes by some ridiculously talented and cool people, it's sort of an online jedi academy for photographers, where a group of masters select a cohort of paduan learners who work together to learn and grow. I was selected by the incredible Jessica Lark, and have already started to meet a fabulous group of people who I will be sharing the journey with. There will be more updates on that front as I go along the path, it will take me a while to really get moving since right now I am going to be connectivitevely challenged. (yeah, I just invented my own word there, sorry)

   Now for Hawaii. Once I had my travel dates down, I got on Model Mayhem and One Model Place to try and find some local models to set up shoots with. I initially had a lot of interested responses, but as it got closer and closer, the majority of them flaked. Wound up with two relatively good prospects. One of them was interested in modeling nude, but wasn't comfortable with doing it in a potentially public place, so she asked about doing boudoir in my hotel. My first instinct was, "oh hell no, I am going to be in Hawaii, I am going to do beach and waterfall shots!" But I figured I would go with the flow, so I told her I would let her know. Then I checked into my hotel, took a look around, and decided it would work. So lesson one- go with the flow of the universe. Seems to have worked for me so far, went with it here and it paid off. Lots of good shots, but what really sold it was the cracked glass windows between the bedroom and bathroom. Lighting was a pain in the ass, should have brought some gaffers tape, wound up balancing a flash on top of a lighting fixture on the mirror and hoping it wouldn't fall, but here is the kind of images we were able to get: (censored just to keep the post PG13, you will have to wait for the full NSFW gallery later on)

   So pretty happy with how that worked out. Second model knew of some good beaches up on the North West corner of the island near Kaena Point so we planned an afternoon meet up. Traffic was lighter than I expected so I got there pretty early. The image I opened the post with was one I took while scouting around and killing time. I also found a glider port, and decided to take a glider flight to kill time. This was an excellent choice! 

   More from the glider coming later, it was challenging to shoot through the canopy, especially not knowing when the pilot was going to catch a wind gust and do something fancy to show off.  But it was cool. I know there are a lot of glider ports around San Diego, will have to investigate them when I get home and get caught up. 

    So got down from the flight and the model showed up. Not only was the beach she chose awesome, but she had been modeling for a while and knew what she was doing. The shoot was great, she gave me lots of awesome with minimal direction, which is great since I am still pretty inexperienced when it comes to posing models. She was just plain fun to work with. We timed it so the we just caught the golden hour, and the universe obviously listened when I said I wanted an epic beach shoot, because after some other great shots you will see soon, we ended with a set like this:

   All natural light, and yes, that is a freaking RAINBOW behind her head. I pulled up the saturation a little bit in photoshop, but no kidding, it was there. 

   So thus ends my epic week of Hawaiian working vacation. Tomorrow it's back to the ship and getting ready to head back out to sea. I'll be mostly off the grid for a little while again,  but I will have  a lot of time to work up all the images from the week of shooting, so when I get to civilization again there will be full galleries from my shoots in paradise, and hopefully more information on the book! 

    Until then, don't forget me, please feel free to stop by my fundraising page,  pass the link on to your friends, and finally, always remember that photography isn't about the gear.... unless it's this one from outside a coffee and chocolate factory on the North Shore.....

   Yeah, I said coffee AND chocolate factory. Told you it was an epic trip! That's all for now, back to the grind, see you again in a month or so. Aloha and Mahalo!

Epic photo shoot... this is how it's supposed to go!

  A week or two ago, while I was still out to sea on my last trip, a friend/fellow aerialist/fellow photographer, Meghan Meredith, tossed out a great idea. We have a lot of photographers as well as talented aerialists at Aerial Revolution, our gym/second home. (I mean that, it's kinda like the Cirque Du Soliel version of Joe's Gym from Dodgeball, we're family- even if we're nothing close to average) So why not collaborate and set up a photo shoot day. We'd all get to work together, the aerialists would get great pics for their resumes, we'd get great stuff for our portfolios, and the studio would make a little extra money. Everybody wins.

  So, yesterday was the first shoot of what hopefully will be a regular occurrence in the future, and I have to say it was awesome. I was a little worried at first because I wound up running late (note to self, GPS in the iPhone does NOT take traffic into account when it calculates travel times from point A to Point B) but I actually had planned ahead and knew exactly how I wanted to set up the lighting, so was able to get in and set up while the models were still warming up and getting into costume.

  Meghan had already worked out costuming, posing and makeup with the models, once I had the lights up and rigging set, it was game on. Our first aerialist was Amy.

   We got into a good rhythm, I was shooting, Meghan and two of our instructors, Ivo and Jackie, were posing the aerialists with a little input based on what I could see through the lens. Went pretty well, we were having fun, music was on (I'd comment on Ivo's playlist, but my musical taste has also been called into question at times, so I won't) all we really needed was beer to make it a perfect day. Amy came to the rescue and offered to make a beer run while we kept shooting. Her selection was as excellent as her posing and the shoot got even more perfect.

   Next up was Mary, who rocked it as well.

    Our third and final (planned at least) model for the day was Traci. She is one of my favorite people, recently returning to aerial after a hiatus, and it was awesome to see her flying again. She also gave the camera some great stuff:

even when we disagreed as to creative direction:

 
  See why she's one of my favorite people? Anyone who can look that awesome while flipping me off is definitely a person worth knowing, right?

  Anyway, while we were shooting Traci, Mary was getting ready to head home. She is a motorcyclist, and she happens to have the most awesome kitty ears helmet I have ever seen. She was putting on her boots and biker gear and someone said we needed to get her on the trapeze in her leathers and boots. She mentioned something about wanting to do a shoot on her motorcycle one day. I can neither confirm nor deny that the beer had any effect on what came next (and she hadn't had any- for the record) but someone said why not today? So we opened up the back door to the studio, and in rolled Mary on her cruiser. Parked it right under the trapeze and the shoot after the shoot started.

  We finally had to call it quits, mostly because we were laughing so hard I couldn't focus anymore, so we broke everything down and headed out. These are all rough draft images, the next awesome part is I get to take my time editing. Meghan is going to work up an image package for each model while I am out to sea, I get to just edit at my leisure and post the finished versions when I am back from my next trip.

   So, awesome afternoon of shooting, got some great shots, spent time with friends laughing and playing while making art, and I don't have to do any follow up. Not sure how many days like this I will have in my career as a photographer, but these are the ones that make me think it's worth pursuing and putting in all the less fun hours.

   Thanks again to everyone involved, especially Meghan for setting it up, and Jess - who apparently isn't going to kill us after all for driving a motorcycle into her aerial studio ;-)

How durable is the SB-910 Speed Light? Pay attention to your gear and don't assume anything.

    The image above isn't a finished product, it's a work in progress. You may see it again later on in a different form. It's a first quick edit of the first shot I am trying to take from a creative concept in my head into a finished image. It's a composite of about 42 separate frames, some HDR, some long exposure, some normal. But that isn't what this post is about. This post is about those rocks you see in the lower right corner and my SB-910.

   After we did the exposures for this shot, the plan was to finish the evening with more traditional shots. I pulled my camera off the tripod, and because we were short on time and light, I decided I would just use the tripod as a speed light mount. Threw the 910 onto the tripod, didn't really check to make sure it was locked down before I went into my bag to grab a soft box. Sure enough, in the second my back was turned, the wind gusted and the 910 fell off the tripod and dropped about 4 feet down onto those wonderful large rocks you see in the image above. It made a wonderful shattering sound and pieces of plastic flew everywhere.

 I picked it up to take a look and saw this (did you ever want to see your flash naked? If not look away now)

  It looked like the damage was only to the red plastic window covering the focus assist lamp. But when I turned the flash on and tried a test shot using the D800 in commander mode, nothing. Thought maybe I had just broken the IR window, so put it on the hot shoe, and luckily, it worked. Figured I now just had a very overpriced on camera flash, and wondered if I was now doing a $500 dollar photo shoot. Still, had no time to waste, so just shot with robo-flash on camera until we completely ran out of daylight and we needed to hike off the beach. I call it robo flash because with the cover missing I think it sort of looks like happy robot about to kill its' human masters... but I digress.

  The next day I had another shoot. Since I figured the IR mode on the 910 was shot I pulled out the mitros as my primary off camera for this one. But when I fired off my test shots, the mitros didn't work as an IR remote either. Now I  had to really sit back and take stock of what the hell was going on. Luckily I had more time on this shoot so my troubleshooting was more level headed and thorough, and quickly revealed that I was being a dumb ass. The last time I used my D800 as a commander was at the speed light workshop, where I was deconflicting with other shooters so had switched my master to channel 4. All my flashes were set to channel 1. Fixed that issue and not only did the mitros work perfectly as a slave, but so did the busted up 910 when I tested it later that night.

  So, what did I learn from this? First off, solid gear is much more durable than I give it credit for. Second, pay attention to the little things. If I had just taken the extra second to make sure the 910 was locked down in the first place, it wouldn't have fallen. If I had taken the time to reset my camera back to its' baseline after the workshop I wouldn't have thought the damage was as bad as I initially did. Finally, I got a good reminder of the importance of keeping going regardless of what happened. The flash fell, it broke, I went to a backup and still got good images and had a fun evening of shooting.

   More will come from this shoot later on when I finish processing images. I will probably be going blog silent for a little while, I am getting ready for a summer of travel, there will be lots of shooting but I won't have a solid and reliable internet connection again really until August or September, so I will post when I can, but I'll probably be gone for a bit then back in force this fall. Stay tuned. If all goes well, you may also see my first attempt at a book coming out shortly, since I will have a lot of travel time free to write.

   And just to finish it up- turns out the only damage was the red plastic window cover for the front of the flash, $12 plus shipping and handling later, my 910 is good as new and still blasting away.



 

Do or Not Do, there is no try... little green wisdom for life and photography.

  Not sure why, maybe it's because we just passed through another May the 4th, maybe because I just finished reading another Star Wars expanded universe novel, maybe because the next installment of the Star Wars films just started production today, maybe something else entirely, but I have had Jedis on the brain lately and yesterday as I was finishing up a run I had Yoda on the brain.

  There are lots of Yoda quotes out there, but one of the most famous is his admonition to Luke,  "Try Not.... Do or Do Not, there is no Try," really stuck in my head. I have written before about going all in and betting on myself with this photography endeavor, but hadn't really thought about it in Yoda's terms before. What does this mean really?

  There are lots of interpretations out there, but here is how I have decided to take it. I think that when you say, either to yourself or someone else, "I'll try," you are making room for failure before you even start, which means you are not fully committed to what you are doing and don't really have the deep seated belief that you can succeed. Entering a new endeavor with this mindset is almost a guarantee of failure as you will not truly be giving your all and throwing yourself full tilt into your work. When faced with a challenge, I believe what Yoda means is that you should commit yourself fully to the task at hand, throw everything you have at it. Leave no room in your mind for failure. Maybe you will do, maybe you won't, but there is no middle ground- and even if you don't reach your goal, you still DID something. Even if you fail, you made an effort and you can learn from that and decide whether to do again, or move on to something else.

  The most obvious example I can think of in my life is my first attempt at riding a tall bike my first year at Burning Man. Back when I had more free time in my life I was a triathlete. I raced one full Ironman, a couple of half IM races and lots of shorter triathlons. I was spending a lot of time riding bikes around training and racing. During this time, I wound up with a recurring nightmare in which I was strapped to a bike which somehow grew to incredible proportions such that I was riding with my head in the clouds. My feet were clipped in and I could not stop because I would fall over and it was so high I wouldn't survive. Read what you will in the symbolism, but I woke up many times in a cold, sweaty terror because my giant cloud bike had fallen over and I was heading to the pavement really fast. If you happen to know me in real life and know more of my history, there was lots more going on in my life that could have played a role in that dream and its' meaning, but it doesn't matter in the final analogy. Bottom line is I got to my first Burning Man with a lot going on in my life and a lot to issues I was trying to move past. As I went around, there were lots of people riding tall bikes all over the place. I decided that as part of dealing with my fears I would try to ride a tall bike and get over the fear from my recurring nightmare. I found someone with a bike that was willing to let me try, and went at it. Turns out the hardest part of riding a tall bike is getting started. I tried several times and failed miserably. Finally, I realized that what was holding me back was fear or failure. I was "trying," but not fully committing because I was afraid of falling. I was going slow and leaving myself a safe out in case I fell, which guaranteed I wasn't going to make it. Finally I committed and decided in my head I was going to get up on that bike and ride or I was going to wind up in a bloody, broken dusty heap, left caution to the wind and threw myself fully into the attempt to get up on the bike. Sure enough, when I could breath again I was riding a tall bike around the playa. Stopping was another bag of fear, but once I was going, I had to stop sometime so I had no choice but to face that fear of falling and get off the bike. When I stopped "trying," I DID, and it was awesome.

  So how does this apply to my photography? Lots of ways actually, but thinking of Yoda finally gave me the angle I needed to finally talk about a shoot I did a few weeks ago, which is what I will focus on here. I have been on Model Mayhem for a while not, using it to connect with models and network. Usually, I am the one sending out the messages, but about a month ago I got a message from a model saying she would be coming down to my neck of the woods and wanted to shoot with me. I looked her up, and I have to say she has quite an amazing portfolio. The quote from her profile was that she only took paid shoots and did not do anything on trade unless she thought your work was exceptional, but here she was asking me to shoot her on trade. I have to say that I was a little intimidated, much like back when the first model I was going to shoot casually mentioned that she was one of Helmut Newton's models earlier in her career. I had a couple of good locations in mind, but no clear idea of what I wanted from the shoot. But I decided to "try."

  Like I mentioned earlier, one of the reasons that there is really no such thing as "trying" is that as long as you make the effort, you did something, even if it fell short of your intentions. Although we did get some good images from the day, I can't help but feel that there was more "not do" than "do" in the day and I wasn't able to really capture any great, stunning images to compare with what the model already had in her portfolio. Anyway, the images throughout this post are from that shoot, and the whole gallery is available here, so you can let me know what you think. I could come up with plenty of excuses about distractions from a full audience of homeless people under the bridge and too much wind to use any of the lighting setups I had in mind, but really I just wasn't able to deliver and make some super awesome shots happen. Maybe it was intimidation, maybe it was just laziness, I don't know, but while I got good shots, I didn't get great shots. The shoot did end on an interesting note through, we had corresponded using only my first name and her stage name, when we were done and filling out releases with out whole names we finally figured out that we actually knew each other from a past life and had actually last seen each other about a decade ago. Small, strange world.

 

    It seems like the last few months or so have been full of too much try and not enough DO. I need to get my head around fears of failure, worries about not being good enough or talented enough, wondering whether I will be able to make a go of this, even when I haven't really been able to define where I want to take it, or what success will look like.  Outside of photography there are a few areas of my life that could stand to have a bit more DO and a lot less TRY these days. In many areas I have felt stuck despite my half assed promises to "try" and turn things around. I need to get over the fears of failure that are holding me back and just DO; let the results fall out however they will, because the alternative of Not Doing is not where I want to be anymore. 

    Luckily, there is no shortage of DO to be done. I will be traveling a lot this summer for my full time job, whenever I wind up in a port I am going to try and connect with locals and do some shoots. I have also decided that while I am stuck on a ship with nothing to do I am going to write a couple of ebooks. I may not know everything, but I think I have some good ideas to throw out into the world, and it'll just be fun to call myself an author. Worst case it falls flat, but at least I am going to DO. Lots of people with nothing meaningful to say get rich saying it every day, watch Fox "news" sometime if you doubt that. Time to stop trying, it's Jedi time. (and for the record, Han shot first!)

    

What you don't know may hurt you - The pitfalls of buying used gear...

  Like most photographers (excepting those who are lucky enough to get sponsored or those who are independently wealthy) I am always on the lookout for opportunities to get the best gear I can for the least amount of money. I have found out that there is a good way and a bad way to go about this and very recently had the distinction made very clear to me.

  I'll start with the right way. Use an established, well respected gear reseller like Keh, Adorama, B&H, or your local camera store. These guys know what they are doing and want to maintain their good reputations. I haven't done much business with the other big two, but I have made several purchases from KEH and they are easy to deal with and very conservative with their rating system.

  The wrong way. Unless you are an experienced camera technician, I don't recommend ebay, amazon, or craigslist. Ebay/Amazon I haven't even tried out, because buying used gear sight unseen always seemed to me like too much of a gamble and I haven't been willing to roll those dice. I have made two major gear purchases from craigslist and both turned out to be lemons despite my best efforts to protect myself:

   Purchase two: You will see the reason for the reverse order shortly. I bought a used Nikon 24-70mm F2.8 from CL for about 1/3 less than I would have paid new. Guy's excuse for selling was that he was switching to Canon. He did mention that the soon ring was a little sticky. I put it on the camera, tried shots wide open, stopped all the way down, and middle apertures at both ends and the middle of the zoom range, they all looked fine on the camera LCD, so I paid him, took the lens and went my merry way. Wasn't able to tell until I got home and looked at the images 100% on the computer that none of them were sharp. Thought maybe I needed to custom focus adjust for the camera/lens combo, tried that, nothing worked. Eventually took the lens in and had to get it serviced and repaired to the tune of $500. As it worked out, I wound up paying the same total that I would have paid to get the lens brand new initially, so at least in that respect I broke even, but after lesson two I decided that I would never shop CL again for photo gear.

   Purchase one: This is actually the reason I made purchase two, because I didn't realize I had gotten screwed basically until today, even though I bought this lens on CL over two years ago. Actually, since I have gotten a lot of mileage out of this lens, guess I can't really say I got screwed, but I really didn't realize what I had missed until today. The first lens I got on CL was a 70-200mm/F2.8 VR I lens. I got it for about 1/2 the price of new, guy selling it said it was because he was upgrading to the VRII. I put it on the camera, shot it at a range of apertures and focal lengths, everything worked fine. I have used the lens a lot and gotten awesome stuff with it. The first issue I noticed with this lens was last August, when I shot a soccer tournament and realized the lens would not work with teleconverters that it was supposed to work with. Based on conversations with some other shooters, I figured this was just a one off thing, apparently not uncommon. Recently the lens developed a new issue, it would occasionally just decided to stop autofocusing. At first it was really sporadic, then at the speed light workshop last week it started happening every 10th frame or so, really annoying. I knew it had to be the lens since it happened on both Excalibur and the D800. So last week I shipped it up to Nikon. They said it was a bent mount and quoted my $432. I sucked it up and paid, and just got it back this afternoon. Turns out there was more to it than the initial report. I slapped the lens on the camera and started to play, focus was awesome, if anything faster and smoother than before, everything was great, except there was this weird whining noise that the lens had never made before. I tried both bodies with no change. I thought it was weird that Nikon would send it back to me with a flaw so obvious, so I did a little goggling. Turns out that the noise I was hearing for the first time was the Vibration Reduction motor system working, which apparently had not worked for as long as I had owned the lens. I hadn't noticed the lack of a sound I didn't know was supposed to be there, and since this is the only VR lens I own I had nothing to compare it to. So even though the lens had functioned well for me, it had been crippled for the entire time I had been using it. It was shooting pretty sharp even with slower shutter speeds before, can't wait to see how it really performs now that is back to factory condition. And I guess it still didn't cost me much more than it would have to have bought it new or refurbished originally, and I also bet it will now work with the teleconverter.

  But twice bitten, forever shy. No more CL for me, I obviously am not equipped to properly evaluate used gear, so I will stick to buying from people who are and provide a warranty with their used gear.