Burning Man 2014 87 images Created 1 Sep 2014
Burning Man August 23-31, 2014. Black Rock City, Nevada.
The pictures in the album were primarily shot with a Sony A7R w/Zeiss Biogon 35mm f/2 lens, with a few pictures from an iPhone 5s and GoPro HERO 3+ Black (aerial, on DJI Phantom 2).
At the last minute, while packing, I removed all other cameras and lenses from my bags. I had originally planned to bring the Sony as well as an Olympus OM-D E-M1 with a bunch of lenses, and an Edgertronic high-speed camera. But when I packed it all up, it was a huge amount of gear in addition to normal Burning Man survival gear. Also, I had to bring 3 x DJI Phantom 2 quadcopters and 2 x DJI Lightbridge sets in order to ensure success in aerial live-streaming, which took up a lot of room: 2 hard cases, a backpack, and a bike cargo trailer. I was feeling really overwhelmed with gear and decided to limit my photography possibilities in order to enjoy the event more (since I was a playa virgin).
In hindsight, I think I would have brought at least one more lens—a super-wide. I felt really limited during the week of amazing visual stimuli. Given the opportunity to do it again, I might have brought along a second body with a super-wide lens on it (maybe the Voigtlander 21/1.8). I felt really constrained with only a 35mm lens; a lot of the art is really big, and you can go into a lot of spaces and shoot inside, so a wide lens would have been great. A longer lens would also have been good to compress big structures on the playa. The art is big, but there is also a lot of space between it all; a long lens would make things look closer together. I'm not really a portraits guy, but a longer lens would also have helped for capturing shots of people.
Of course, changing a lens means dust on the sensor, and a lot of people are super paranoid about removing lenses while at Burning Man. I don't think it is a big deal. Change the lens and shoot. You can always get a sensor cleaned, later!
The pictures in the album were primarily shot with a Sony A7R w/Zeiss Biogon 35mm f/2 lens, with a few pictures from an iPhone 5s and GoPro HERO 3+ Black (aerial, on DJI Phantom 2).
At the last minute, while packing, I removed all other cameras and lenses from my bags. I had originally planned to bring the Sony as well as an Olympus OM-D E-M1 with a bunch of lenses, and an Edgertronic high-speed camera. But when I packed it all up, it was a huge amount of gear in addition to normal Burning Man survival gear. Also, I had to bring 3 x DJI Phantom 2 quadcopters and 2 x DJI Lightbridge sets in order to ensure success in aerial live-streaming, which took up a lot of room: 2 hard cases, a backpack, and a bike cargo trailer. I was feeling really overwhelmed with gear and decided to limit my photography possibilities in order to enjoy the event more (since I was a playa virgin).
In hindsight, I think I would have brought at least one more lens—a super-wide. I felt really limited during the week of amazing visual stimuli. Given the opportunity to do it again, I might have brought along a second body with a super-wide lens on it (maybe the Voigtlander 21/1.8). I felt really constrained with only a 35mm lens; a lot of the art is really big, and you can go into a lot of spaces and shoot inside, so a wide lens would have been great. A longer lens would also have been good to compress big structures on the playa. The art is big, but there is also a lot of space between it all; a long lens would make things look closer together. I'm not really a portraits guy, but a longer lens would also have helped for capturing shots of people.
Of course, changing a lens means dust on the sensor, and a lot of people are super paranoid about removing lenses while at Burning Man. I don't think it is a big deal. Change the lens and shoot. You can always get a sensor cleaned, later!
