Lots of folks are out with the summer storm shooting lightning and have been asking what trigger I use. I tell them Miops of course which then comes the nest question, “What’s Miops?” Miops (available many places) is only THE best lightning trigger on the planet! I’ve tried them all and they all failed, except Miops. Miops has never failed, always works and is the simplest tool I’ve ever used. It connects to your iPhone with a great app, firmware is consistently being updates and makes lightning photography (and a whole lot more) a snap. I can’t recommend it enough.

The one thing I recommend you add to the Miops is a small ballhead, I use Small Rig, so you mount Miops via the small ballhead into the hot shoe of your camera. This makes it easier to not only point the Miops but get it above the shade on your lens. It’s a small thing that I think makes a big difference in getting the photo you want to tell the story of the storm. I have a label on the bottom of my Miops with my starting settings. They are M ISO200 1/125 f11 cause otherwise I wouldn’t remember them.

And be sure to check out Miops Mobile. Great tools especially with summer thunderstorms!

We have the original DJI Gimbal and it has served us well but it was limited. One of the big things was it was kinda princess. When the 4 Pro came out a little while ago, I jumped on it, and man, I’m so glad I did! How you see it here is how I use it the majority of the time with the Z 30 but it can handle the Z 8 or Z 9 with the Z24-70f2.8 with no problem. The 4 Pro has a new, no-slip camera plate solving another problem making it easy to swap out bodies (I bought an extra one of these). Balancing is a snap and once done, I simply noted the number for the various bodies so changing out takes less than a minute. The real biggie for me is how robust the 4 Pro is. It has already 9k air miles traveling in my checked luggage! The battery charge lasts and lasts which is sweet. The biggest thing for me is it permits one-man filming! For example, all the Moose’s Shooting Reports is done with the 4 Pro. The improvements in the 4 Pro might seem small, additions, minimal, but what DJI has included in the 4 Pro make it a great tool you should check out!

Like so much of our world today, this is all operated by settings inputted in the App. I have the video quality setting cranked down so I can monitor the feeder from across the country and save battery. There are a gazillion of settings so you can customize the Soliom to your needs. I can’t recommend the Soliom highly enough. I Love this thing!

ingIn upping my video game, I needed to make sound simpler. Shotgun mic, G3 Lav mic and others in the gear locker are bulky and even worse, wire intensive. Whether in the office or on the road, setting up the mics took time creating a mental roadblock for myself. Shure MoveMic has taken all of that and made it a thing of the past! The MoveMic is super small while producing big sound. I used the Z 30 for the background for scale so you can see how small the receiver is which slips into the hot shoe and has a small, coiled cable to connect to the camera. The Lav mics have no wires, send their sound Bluetooth to the receiver. The reach of the system is 100′ line of site. The entire system is charged via USBc with the charge lasting and lasting. Getting beyond the amazing stats, it’s the ease and quality that is truly amazing. Now, I’m energized to record video with this one aspect so streamlined. Shure MoveMic, brilliant!

Traveling is a fun and exciting aspect of our photography! Reaching our destination by plane for many is scary because of the unknown. If we expose the unknown though and go into it with eyes wide open and prepared, your worries will be back to just the normal, on time departures and making your connection. And that’s where traveling with gear starts and most of our decisions lie so lets look at that first.

I’m very fortunate being able to travel to some location of my liking each month which means jumping on a plane. Having to start and end my travels for the past thirty years at a “feeder” airport means I have to get to a hub to make a connection to get to my final destination. This has made me very aware of taking my gear and dealing with overheads/carryon restrictions as well as checked luggage rules. One of the first things I learned first hand was, going for the cheapest fares meant the great amount of stress when it comes to my gear which brings me to my first suggestion, pick an airline and register in their loyalty program PDQ! Because of my travels and feeder airport, United was my choice and they have taken good care of me and more importantly, my gear all these years. Yes, there has been a couple of bumps along the way but that goes with air travel. My second word of advice, always travel with a smile!

Being a Premiere with United pays dividends for my gear. When I pick my flights, I get on the first flight of the day so I’m early in the system and then I avoid puddle jumpers. This sometimes means paying more money but I don’t have to stress about my gear so worth the price to me. Being Premiere means boarding first so I don’t have to worry about overhead space. Before I was Premiere, I paid extra to board early and in that process, I became Premiere faster. In the beginning, I sweated out the 50lbs weight limit for checked luggage but it was a good life lesson. Now that I have the status I can have 3, 70lbs checked bags at no cost, I rarely take advantage of that. One of the nice features of flying United is their app which permits me to track my luggage from the moment it’s in their possession. You want to look at your local airport, figure out the carrier that works best for you and work the system to remove the stress from flying with your gear.

I carryon my camera bodies / lenses and put all the rest in my check luggage. That means exactly what it says, either the ThinkTank Airport Security or Advantage XT (not pictured) or Mindshift MP-1v2 (photopack of my design just for this purpose) have just bodies and lenses in them and nothing else. You can see how I pack my gear in these bags on my YouTube channel. Chargers, cables, spare batteries, tripod, flashes, all go in my checked luggage. My MacBook Pro and SSD drives go as carryon in the Bagsmart Briefcase.

I have depended on the Eagle Creek Trunk 36″ for decades, this is my third one (their warranty repair is amazing!). They are simply the best! The checked in luggage which normally weighs in between 60-65lbs (I have a 70lbs per bag limit) will have all the support camera gear mentioned above not in the carryon, tripod and other personal belongings. I pack my checked luggage thinking it will be scanned, as it better be, by security. This means that I pack thinking vertically. An example is a book, I don’t lie it flat in the luggage but on its spin. So when scanned, there is not a dense brick but narrow spin. The same goes for batteries, flashes, anything that could make a big signature in the scan. I can’t remember the last time my bag required a hand security check.

And that’s it. I keep it real simple which also helps elevate the stress of air travel. Have I ever had my gear damaged in my travels? Knock on wood, I have not. Has my checked luggage ever been “lost”? Never lost but delayed a flight or two. The funny thing, the delayed luggage has always seemed to be on the homeward bound flight so no big deal. Flying 1k miles a year, I have lots of practice flying with my gear. I hope this help you come up with a strategy for stress free travel with gear in 2024.

My good friend Jerry has the original Zemlin Lens Cap on his Z600f4 TC. He really likes it, showed it to me and talked it up pretty fiercely. I checked it out and was impressed. Zemlin just came out with their v2 and I had the opportunity to get one and I’m really glad I did! The first thing that impressed me was the fit, it’s perfect as in, with the hood on or off, it’s easy to take on and off and fits snugly and tightly on the Z600f4 TC. The v2 looks the same on the front, operates the same but the back end us been updated and streamlined. This truly makes for great protection which is what a cap is all about. This is a great accessory I’m so pleased now resides on the Z600f4 TC.