The Ritual Before Going to Make Photos

Here's how I prepare before going to make photographs. I've done this with Canon and Pentax and I don't see why this can't apply to Nikon, Sony, or Olympus. There are a whole bunch of steps that I do only once or twice a year, some of these steps I do them every time, religiously.

First of all, I prepare my bag the evening before. I do it over a desk and the bed because I need a lot of space.

  1. Empty the big camera bag and make sure that everything is back into its place. The camera bag is not a storage place, I have a old chest and half of a closet for that. So I almost always start with an empty camera bag.
  2. One or two cameras? Basically, is it for work or not?
  3. Camera, remove any lens attached and place the camera with the lens cover and all the lenses, that I will take with me, on the desk.
  4. Clean all the lenses and the cameras with my Giotto rocket.
  5. Clean the electronic contacts on the cameras and on all the lenses, that I will take, with an LCD screen cleaner.
  6. Do I need to clean the sensor? So far, never. I say this as I touch wood (superstitious).
  7. I put the cameras, with the mostly likely to be used lens, in the bag.
  8. New job, empty memory card. I do not reformat my memory cards, I only move the photos from the memory card to the computer.
  9. Turn the camera on and check the battery level. If it's below 50%, switch the batteries and charge it so it will be fully charged by the next morning.
  10. Switch the camera to Av, then check the Quick Screen to verify the settings. Where some changed during the previous photo session? It should be: Raw, Low speed, ISO 400, Zone focus, White balance to daylight/cloudy, f/stop close to wide open, AI Servo, and Evaluative metering.
  11. I use orientation linked AF points, make sure they are set correctly.
  12. If it's an “important” session, verify the MFA and do a quick focus test with all the lenses. What's an “important” session? Something that will not be repeated, an event or a very expensive… with no possibility of redoing it again.
  13. Verify the date and time. Does it need to be adjusted for timezones or drift? The time drift is especially important when dealing with multiple cameras and/or multiple photographers.
  14. Tripod? Panoramic Head?
  15. Flash? Then swap the flash batteries and charge the batteries. Also bring the extension cable, remote, Gary Fong Lumisphere.
  16. Light Reflector?

This seems like a lot, but by doing this religiously, it's almost automatic and takes me about 10 minutes unless I want to recheck the MFA. Then it's another 30 minutes and most of the time is spent aligning the chart and the camera.