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Photo Equipment

I’ve received a number of questions from people asking about the equipment I use to photograph eSports events and tournaments. In the interest of answering everyone’s question without feeling like I’m repeating myself over and over again, I have decided the best solution to the question is to answer it with a blog post going over what I use and why I use it.

This is the gear I carry with me when photographing an event:

Think Tank Photo Airport Ultralight v2.0 – I got this photo backpack mainly for the reason that it is legal international carry-on for all planes. Additionally, the Think Tank brand is known in the photo community as a name with quality and well built bags and pouches. The Airport Ultralight is no exception. It allows me to carry all my gear in a single compact backpack.

FujiFilm FinePix S2 Pro – This camera is old (it came out in 2002), and it shows its age with less than stellar high ISO noise control, slow writing speeds and inability to accept CompactFlash cards more than 4GB. However, it does possess one great feature that all FujiFilm DSLR share: beautiful color rendition of skin tones. Many of the photos I take have little to no post-processing, some even come straight out of the camera.

Nikon Nikkor 16-85mm f/3.5-5.6 ED VR AF-S DX Lens – I got this lens only a couple of weeks ago, in fact the famed “Believe” photo of Mike Ross’s improbable victory over Haunts was shot on a different lens (Nikon Nikkor 28-85mm f/3.5-4.5 AF). I got this lens because I felt that 28mm (52mm equivalent on FX) was not wide enough to include everything I wanted in my frame. Additionally, the 16-85mm had Vibration Reduction (VR) something that the 28-85mm lacked. I first started shooting this lens at Devastation in Phoenix, Arizona and realized how valuable a true digital wide-angle and VR lens was. Not only could I include more of the crowd and atmosphere in a single frame, I was able to handhold the camera without using an external flash at shutter speeds as low as 1/15 sec. I am currently looking to buy a telephoto lens for the times that I am unable to have close access to the players.

Nikon Speedlight SB-28DX – This flash unit is obsolete for most modern Nikon and Fuji DSLR for TTL purposes, as it uses the old d-TTL technology which has now been replaced by i-TTL. The reason I use this flash is because the Fuji S2 only supports d-TTL and not i-TTL. I try to bounce the flash so that the light does not blind the players and to prevent the ugly straightforward flash look. Ideally, If I had a camera bracket to mount the flash off the hot shoe I would but as of now I do not have one. Just got to make the best of what gear you have. Its my mantra, not having gear should never prevent you from getting your photo, additional gear gives a photographer additional flexibility to be creative.

External battery pack for SB-28DX – Really just self-explanatory, more batteries means more juice and faster recycle times. Less time spending fiddling around with changing batteries means less chances of missing a crucial shot.

Sekonic L-508 Lightmeter – A lightmeter is very useful for event and documentary photography, especially as crowds forming and dispersing may fool your camera’s own meter. I find that the L-508’s incident meter reading much more accurate in shooting at events especially when not shooting with an external flash.

Lumiquest Light Modifiers – I rarely use these, I prefer to bounce my flash. I have them in my bag just in case.

PowerEx MH-C800S Battery Charger – Perhaps one of the best battery chargers for rechargeable batteries. Its microchip prevents overcharging of batteries, one of the main ways shorten the battery life cycle. It charges up to 8 batteries at one time, 2 hours for a “fast” cycle, 4 hours “soft” charging and a “conditioning” mode for refreshing batteries that have not been used for a while or starting to show signs of deterioration.

Additional gear: External hard drive, Tiffen lens cleaner, CompactFlash cards, CompactFlash reader, USB drive, microfiber cloth, fingerless gloves, business cards, hand lotion, rechargeable batteries, self-made bounce card, and my mother’s laptop sometimes (I do not have my own laptop yet unfortunately).

Photo of my gear packed into the Think Tank Photo Airport Ultralight v2.0:

Yes, I am reading a book on Photojournalism!