If you’re like me, you probably buy too much photo gear. Not so much cameras and lenses but things like bags, light modifiers and various accessories. Here are some of my purchases in 2018:
Rock-n-Roller cart
I’ve been meaning to get a half-decent cart for some time. A homemade dolly-style cart with a bright yellow mat ($55 in parts and plywood from Home Depot in 1985) has served me very well. An over-priced Tri-Kart 800 is something I regret buying about 18 years ago because it was of limited use to me. But many local TV crews use the Tri-Kart.
This year I bought a RocknRoller R12RT. It’s pretty good but it takes up extra space because it’s not small and it weighs 33 lb. Fully extended, the R12RT won’t fit in some elevators.
RocknRoller needs to redesign the weakest link, the vertical end bars which sort of snap into place by tugging on a piece of wire. Two video guys in my area use RocknRoller carts and they both have carts with bent and wobbly end bars.
I didn’t purchase the shelf accessory because, although it’s a good idea, the design isn’t very good. There are several third-party videos showing how to modify the shelf but you need to weld. RocknRoller needs to adapt this modification.
When you have a cart with two fixed wheels and two wheels that pivot, you always handle the cart from the pivoting end. This gives you full control of the cart. But on RocknRoller’s web site, they sometimes show carts being used the other way around.
Some of their carts have small pivoting wheels and large fixed wheels. This might be okay for very light loads but it’s not suitable for anything heavy. The R12RT cart has large pivoting wheels.
If you need a cart, the R12RT is a pretty good choice but other options might include:
• A Cosco hand truck sold at many stores including Canadian Tire which often puts it on sale. This cart is very strong but it doesn’t collapse or extend like a RocknRoller.
• A Krane AMG 750 looks good but it’s expensive and seems to be impossible to find in Canada.
• MacSports Wagons might be useful for photographers. The manufacturer claims these collapsible wagons can hold to hold 150 to 300 lbs. depending on the wagon model.
No matter what cart you use, you’ll probably stack your gear. So the load will have to be secured to prevent it from falling off the cart. Most people will choose bungee cords but these elastic cords are stretchy and may not hold a heavy load. The answer is to use lashing straps (available at Home Depot) which do not stretch and they lock in place with a buckle.
The bottom of many carts is often an open set of metal rails. If you want a floor so that small items won’t fall through the rails, instead of buying the manufacturer’s floor or shelf accessory, just buy some suitable plywood or other board from Home Depot or other lumber store. You might attach some wooden stops underneath each plywood piece to prevent it from sliding off the cart. There’s no need to carpet the plywood but you could do it to make it look pretty. Or you might add a rubber mat instead.
Cheap octaboxes
I bought a “pro quality” Neewer 55-inch octabox with grid for $70 from Amazon (the product seems to have been discontinued on the manufacturer’s site). How bad could it be?
It was bad.
This was the first octabox or softbox I’ve ever seen that did not have any support for the poles except for the tiny end pockets to hold the pole tips. To assemble this thing, you had to hold the speedring in one hand, hold the octabox material in another hand and then put the loose poles in place using two other hands. This product was clearly not meant to be set up more than once. The metal poles bent and the tips fell off immediately. It was returned the same day.
Medium-priced octaboxes
I bought a couple of these (each under $200), one made by Godox (P120L) and the other made by an unknown company and sold by Strobepro. Both are reasonably well made but not as well as a Chimera or Elinchrom.
My Chimera and Elinchrom softboxes and octaboxes have lasted for decades. They’ve been set up and taken down hundreds of times. They’ve been knocked over too many times, stepped on, driven over (not on purpose) and they’ve been soaked with water, cola and champagne (not at the same time). No issues whatsoever.
I’m not convinced that these medium-priced boxes, which are usually half the price, or less, than the big name brands, will withstand rough handling. With off-brand boxes, it might be impossible to get replacement rods should you ever need one.
(If you’re considering a Godox P120L or P90L, perhaps buy the P120H or P90H instead, if you can even find a store that sells these. The L version uses fiberglass rods which can break. The H version uses metal rods which probably won’t break.)
Beauty Dish
I already have a standard metal beauty dish and this year I bought a collapsible “dish.” It isn’t really a dish but rather it’s a small, deep, 16-sided octabox (or to be accurate, it’s a hexadecabox). I got it only because it’s easier to carry around. For studio use only, I use the metal dish because it’s easier and faster to use. The light from either dish is more or less the same.
By the way, the look of a beauty dish can be reasonably replicated using a small shoot-through umbrella. A small, plain white umbrella is cheap and portable.
Pelican Case
I bought a Pelican Air 1615 which is about the same size as my Pelican 1650. The Air 1615 is much lighter than a 1650 but it doesn’t feel as sturdy. I will stand on my 1650 without hesitation but I wouldn’t stand on an Air 1615.
Like all Pelicans, the Air 1615 case is expensive and the padded dividers are ridiculously overpriced especially because you get so few dividers.
If you need a wheeled case the size of a Pelican Air 1615, there’s little choice. Nanuk makes nice cases but not in this size.
Light Stand Bags
I’ve gone through a number of these over the years. In the 1980s, I used nylon/cloth hockey equipment bags. I did commercial photography for a sporting goods retail chain and they gave me a number of these 48-inch-long duffle bags. Hockey bags today are better made but they’re also much shorter.
In the mid-1990s, I bought two custom-made 48-inch bags which I still use today. Back then, a photographer convinced a local industrial sewing shop to make a bunch of these bags for photographers. They did one production run and the bags sold out very quickly.
This year I bought a bag made for stage lighting. This very large, 62-inch bag is reasonably well made for just $62. I wish they made exactly the same bag but 48 inches long. They do make a smaller bag but it’s much too shallow for me.
I use this 62-inch bag for carrying two C-stands and/or several rolls of 52-inch background paper. The bag has a huge volume but if you fill it, the bag can be too heavy to carry.
Computer Stuff
The best thing about the first Mac Pro computers is that they were designed to be user-serviceable. Sadly Apple has since moved in the opposite direction by making its products almost impossible to service on your own or to recover data.
For my old Mac Pro 5,1, I bought two USB-3 PCIe cards to add eight USB-3 ports to the existing five USB-2 ports. Imagine having a computer with lots of ports! I also added a new graphics card which tripled the amount of VRAM.
Apple is promising a new Mac Pro later this year to replace its silly “trash can” Mac but I dread to imagine the new price. An old Mac Pro can be bought for a low price and then upgraded into a very good machine.
[Update August 2019: Apple announced that it will allow third-party businesses to repair out-of-warranty iPhones. Currently this is only for the US but published news reports stated that Apple plans to expand it to other countries.]
Hard drives
I bought more hard drives. This seems to be a biennial thing.
Floppy disks, Zip disks, Syquest cartridges, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray, M-Discs, LTO tape, hard drives, solid state drives. I think technology companies have failed consumers when it comes to long-term storage of their data. There’s no easy archival solution.
M-Discs, which are claimed to last 1,000 years, are/were supposed to be the answer and maybe they will be. But you need a special optical drive to write these discs and, of course, an optical drive to read them. But manufacturers are moving, or have moved, away from optical drives.
Online data storage seems to be the tech industry’s only answer. But online storage is slow for large amounts of data and it works only when you’re, uh, online. Even then it’s still recommended to have a non-online backup of your data.
We will wait for the description of your new purchases.
It was an interesting topic.