News shooters: How many digital bodies are you using?

Here's a question for news shooters: How many digital bodies are you

using on an average assignment, and does the number differ from the

days when you shot film? In my film-shooting days, I rarely went out

with less than two bodies and sometimes carried three if the action

was intense; today, I go out with one 10D and the basic three Canon

2.8 L zooms. Most of the fellow shooters I meet on a job are also

carrying one body. Lens-switching gets frantic at times, but just the

thought of carrying one body with a 24-70 2.8 and another with the

70-200 2.8 makes my knees ache. Still, my 10D is getting on in usage,

and I'll probably soon add a 20D to the lineup, along with a bottle of

Aleve.

When I cover the local horse shows (pretty much my only work right now) I only carry 1 body. After I get my D2h in the fall I'll probably keep my D1 as a backup in my bag though.

Often depends on the assignment. If it's a portrait and I have time to switch lenses, I won't lug the extra stuff around. Today though I have a State final Lacrosse game to cover and I'll carry two bodies, three lenses, a monopod, bottled water, and all the goodies. Three just gets too cumbersome for me. I totally hear you about aching muscles. I'm a rather small person and carrying all this stuff around, say for like a golf tournament for 18 holes in the hot summer is quite a work out. I as well carried only one body in film days. Film was a drag for news work. Souping 4-5 rolls of film from a sporting event, sitting and waiting for it to process through the Wing Lynch, drying the negs, sleeving them, choosing your photo and scanning your negs added 1-2 extra hours per job. Now I can do work on the laptop in a nice airconditioned coffee shop near my assignment and transmit from there. Have multiple cards from different bodies doesn't too much extra time into editing - unlike film. To have been a part of both worlds, I'll take Wi-Fi and digital any day. Of course the purist in me still takes a film on vacation.

Jessica: You are so right about shooting in the digital age! I remember shooting film in Philadelphia 35 years ago for a national daily, having to dash to either the UPI or AP offices, wait for them to soup the stuff, look at wet negs, pick an image and then transmit the wet print. The other day I had an assignment for the same paper in a town 35 miles away from my upstate NY home. It was an eco-protest by college students objecting to the clearing of a woods for a university parking lot. I was still shooting at 3 p.m. with a deadline of 5 for an early edition. The reporter and I drove over to a Borders in a mall on the edge of town, worked up our respective filings and, using the store cafe's wi-fi service, had the stuff in Manhattan in plenty of time. With the article and two images (including one showing a protestor suspended from ropes in a tree while talking on her cell phone), we got half a page in Metro. It just wouldn't have happened without digital.

Here's the image I spoke of above:

One 10D body Bill,Its a fairly small town where I work, If I go out of town for a job I take my D60 backup as well, The one body, a 15-30 Sigma, a 70-200 2.8 plus 1.4 convertor a 50mm Macro 2.8, Metz MZ 54 flash unit, plus batteries, and the other paraphernalia that we need to do the job is heavy enough to lug around, (I use a Billingham photovest) and if the 10D decided to drop dead I could have the D60 in about 15-20 minutes most times.

Two 1 series bodies. A 16-35 on one with a 580 attached just in case, but generally I like to work the avaliable light and a 70-200 on the other. Battery in my back pocket with a notepad and pen and I'm good to go. Some assignments I may wear a belt pack, but generally I like to only have on me what I absolutely need. So that usually means the bag and beltpack are back in the car.

Very nice New York Times image Bill. Funny I read this article last week.

Thanks, Jessica. I just finished bookmarking your excellent portfolio on Sports Shooter. Your work has a really impressive scope for an equally impressive list of clients.

Thanks Bill. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for your bylines in the future. Who knows our paths may cross one day in the Tri-state area.

That would be cool, Jessica. All the best...

When I was a photojournalist/reporter, I carried one body and three lenses.

 

I was an idiot. A sweet, loveable, doofy, lucky idiot, sure, but an idiot.

 

I can't believe I got away for so long without equipment failure. When something finally did happen (my gear went swimming during a canoe trip on which I was writing a feature), I was able to salvage enough film for the story and, of all things, my flash which still works 20+ years later.

 

If I was a "real" PJ today (not a stringer or weekender) I'd want at least two bodies. Since I have a D2H I'm looking forward to the D50 as a tuckaway lightweight even tho' I don't have any fantasies about rejoining the daily PJ grind.

 

For features and stuff that can be rescheduled and reshot later, I guess one body is fine.

 

I guess it also depends on how much faith you have in your equipment. If I were using pool equipment and knew that a particular camera was known to suck up batteries quickly I'd be nervous about taking one body or fewer than three batteries.

 

With simple, non-AF, non-AE gear I never worried about batteries and worried far less about equipment failure.

 

Having said all that, only about half the local PJs I see in the Fort Worth/Dallas Metroplex appear to be carrying more than one body.

Is a d70 acceptable? I read where most newspapers don't want much more than 4MP...

I just covered a demonstation in front of NYC, NY, City Hall with one body; but the other 4 or 5 PJs I saw there all had two on their neck plus backpacks or bags.