Climbing Photographers: What do you use?

Hello, everyone.

I'm interested in hearing what you carry for a day of climbing photography. Everything from cameras, to lenses, ropes, SD cards, hardware, the whole 9 yards. If anyone would like to share kits for skiing, kayaking, or any other "adventure" photography that would be appreciated as well.

Thanks.

I am on my fourth camera in as many years. They keep breaking. Right now I have an Olympus Tough camera and a GoPro. I clip the Olympus on my belt. While the gopro fisheye takes some pretty cool shots (both video and still) you can't really aim the thing.

I carry an Olympus E-PM1 with the kit 14-42mm lens. Its light weight, compact, and most importantly cheap. To top it off it gets great pictures, significantly better than my point and shoot. I screwed a D-ring to the base of the camera and gurth hitched a dyneema sling to it, and I clip that to my harness. I also use the shoulder strap while jugging and taking typical shots, but because I have the sling I'm not afraid to take the strap off my shoulder to shoot. For typical crag shoots, I'll usually get a fixed line on the route's anchors, or on the anchors adjacent to the route and jug up using a grigri which I backup with a knot while hanging. Jon Glassberg has a really nice video on vimeo showing his setup. He uses a belay chair and painters poles to prop himself away from the wall. I've been toying with the idea of trying that out.

Edit: I use a 16Gb class 4 SD card which works well for me. Some people suggest getting the class 10, but I've never had an issue with the speed of my card. I only shoot in raw, and 16Gb gets me roughly 1000 pictures. I've never had an issue with space yet, but I always back up my photos to a laptop every night. I haven't done a full photography shoot overnight yet, but I've brought my camera on trips and I think the most I've done without backing up is around 400 or so. If I was shooting an entire trip, I'd probably get another SD card and possibly a backup battery. The battery I have lasts more than a single day on a charge if I turn it off between shots.

Multipitch I use my Iphone or a small point and shoot when I can grub one from a friend.

When cragging and for actual shoots, I'll use an actual rig.
I use my Canon 60D with a 10-22mm IS lens or a 24-105mm f4 L series for longer or more zoomed in shots. I only occasionally fix ropes, preferring to find good vantage points to shoot from the ground, but if shooting from a fixed rope, one ascender, one etrier or simply a 24" sling, and a Gri-gri is a must. I won't go into details on how to rig but Tim Kemple and other folks have very useful tutorials online (just Google "climbing photography rig"). I've never had an issue bringing my nice gear to the crag as long as I'm careful with it, and the higher end Canon stuff (L glass, 1D series bodies etc.) are all weather and dust-sealed.

Polarizer filter is a must, always, for any style of shooting.

Remember to attach the camera to yourself or your harness in some way, be it by carabiner etc. I know some folks who will also attach extra lenses to themselves in this fashion but when ascending a fixed line, my experience has been that 99% of the time you already know what lens you are gonna be using.

Lighting/ Flash: I use a Canon 430 EX II external flash. The 60D has a remote trigger function for external flash but it needs to be line of sight. In most cases I use a Yongnuo YN-622N TX radio flash trigger. It will transmit a signal to the flash around corners, behind rocks, etc. up to 100m, and supports programming the flash exposure directly from camera without having to reattach the flash.
I know people who use reflectors as well, but that just ends up being a lot of shit to bring up there with you...

Unless you are shooting RAW and/or insanely large files, a 16GB card will be WAY more than you'll ever need for a day of shooting. I can usually make a 16GB last for a couple week road trip as long as I'm not shooting too prolifically.

If fixing and ascending a rope is too time-consuming or requires too much gear, I have a small camera bag from KATA (Just enough for body/lens and one extra lens) that fixes down pretty tight to my back. I've climbed 5.10+ with it without it getting in the way too badly. For overhanging routes someone can actually clip the camera bag to the rope and I can haul it up---this obviously doesn't work on slab! In the past I have climbed the climb I intend to shoot (or one next to it), fixed a rappel, and had a buddy lead while I rap/ shoot next to them or above them. This works pretty well as long as rope ends are kept out of the shot.

Keep climbing and keep clicking!

EDIT: Another thing to look into is a ring mount for your lens that can take square filters, and look into a 2-stop graduated neutral density filter. A lot of climbing shots will feature a shaded wall and a bright sunny background. A grad ND filter is dark on one half and clear on the other, and the ring mount allows rotation for alignment of the gradation. This will allow you to keep both wall/foreground and landscape/background exposed properly.
You can find an entire setup (mount and a selection of filters) for super cheap on Ebay. 15 bucks maybe? Also invaluable for landscape photography.
I don't use my grad ND setup as much as I'd like but when I do I'm always stunned by how much better it makes the final image.

On climbs just for me I use a nikon AW100 point and shoot digital. It's light, waterproof, and versatile . The new model looks even better than the 4 year old version I currently own. It has a 16 mega-pixel option and shoots video. Great little package.

For photo shoots or something special I take my Nikon 300S body with a Sigma pro 17mmto 150mm F2.8 lens and, because I do some lower light shooting, a 30mm F1.4 primary lens.

This set up is nice and fairly simple. I get used to carrying the extra weight of the camera body and love the versatility.

Also: DRY BAGS are your friends.

B-Mkll wrote: Lighting/ Flash: I use a Canon 430 EX II external flash. The 60D has a remote trigger function for external flash but it needs to be line of sight.

I too am interested in how you set up an external flash. I can't think of how set up a flash other than from the ground, which would be ineffective on routes like at cathedral. I might be able to think of a way to jury rig it to the wall, but it would be time consuming and stationary, and would probably only result in a few shots with good lighting on one route.

As for the memory and battery debate, I have 2 16gb Sd cards and 1 32 gb. All three are class 10. These are shared between camera and gopro. For batteries, I have 2, but I'm hoping to get more soon. The reason for this is because when I go on a route to photograph it, I take a lot of pictures. I've never filled the 32 in a day, but I have filled a 16. As for batteries I just switch on, shoot, switch off.

You are correct, the external flash setup does not work well on multipitch, and I rarely if ever bring my full setup on multis anyway. For single pitch, a tripod mount works great from the ground for shorter routes, as does a handheld boom rigged from a stick clip. I know some photographers who will actually rig a tripod setup on the wall itself, though this is extraordinarily time consuming and annoying for the climber as well!

Use your ingenuity to figure out a good external flash placement. My external has a small "stand" that I have used to put the flash into huecos, on ledges etc. near a critical move or aesthetic portion of the route and this actually works better than any rigged setup! Other ideas: attach to skyhook on hold, dangle from rope underneath you, have another friend rappel another route and hold the flash...