Jan 1, 2010 | Field Reports
02.15.10
The SD-9 is a must, period! This is the external battery pack for the SB-900 and when shooting at 8fps, this is the only way you’re going to keep up with the action. If you look at my Whimberly, you’ll see a gray velcro strap, that’s to hold the SD-9 onto the Whimberly Head and out of the way. This also keeps the cord policed so it’s not dangling around to scare wildlife.
The case for the SD-9 is designed to attach easily to a lighting stand, your belt loop and the one thing most folks miss, to keep the power cord policed when not in use. This keeps the cords from getting twisted and knotted or tangled with other gear in your camera bag. The SD-9 holds 6 AA batteries and their power go directly to the capacitor in the SB-900. The batteries in the SB-900 power its computer. In both devices I use PowerEx 2700mHn batteries that I get from Thomas Disturbing. I really don’t know how many I have, a few pounds worth but as you can see, I mark the year I bought the battery right on it with a gold pen.
Jan 1, 2010 | Field Reports
02.15.10
Yeap, I use only Lexar CF Cards. Their size and speed has changed over the years, but not their commitment to a quality item. You see that 300x or 600x speed rating and probably wonder why invest in faster cards when your camera isn’t going to even make use of all that speed. For me it’s real simple, I plug in up to four readers at one time after a days shoot and with one click in DigitalPro, I upload all four cards. With that 600x speed, a task which might take as long as an hour with older cards is done in 15min. And when loading just one card, you can’t beat the Lexar ExpressCard Reader! You can’t buy time that I know of, expect with Lexar 600x cards!
Jan 1, 2010 | Field Reports
02.15.10
Road warrior workflow is a must, at least it is for me. For that reason I don’t trust any of my images to the internal drive of the notebook for long term storage. Being a person who has had both of his notebooks stolen, I’m not going through that pain again. I travel with four of these Buffalo 500GB externals, what you see here are the Master Drives for stills and video. I have a second set which are the backups. Every night prior to hitting the sack, all images are edited and moved and filed to the external. And then just before lights out, I hit the button in DigitalPro and these harddrives and backed up and cksum while I sleep. The Master resides in the briefcase and the backups are in the photopack. They’ve never let me down and that’s after float plane and helicopter flights, dirt roads and float trips. They just work!
Jan 1, 2010 | Field Reports
This has to be the sleeper lens of the century! To be totally honest with you, when I took the 18-35 out of the box, its scary light weight instantly made me question its ability. That’s until I made the first click with it! The spooky sharpness of the 18-35AFS instantly made it a prime lens receiving massive use in my bag. Don’t let the feel of the polycarbonate lens casing fool you, the inside is pure Nikon, rock solid and Nikon tight.
Along with its very impressive sharpness is the fact you can attach a filter (77mm), two of them stacked and have no vignetting. To me this is a critical improvement in wide angle zooms. It means to the Nikon NC filter that I have on all my lenses, I can add the Nikon Slim Polarizer. If the filters are not screwed in tightly, you will see vignetting so we’re working just on the edge, but we can do it. Its light weight, blazing sharp performance of the 18-35AFS might just put this lens in the legendary column. Only history will tell.
graph courtesy Nikon
