Everyone who has ever requested a wedding or commercial quote from me knows that one of the first things I harp on is a line charge for backup equipment rental. And I say that that’s important regardless of which photographer they choose. Some people wonder why I have 3 lenses that cover common portrait lengths.

Here’s why: My personal story for the weekend.

As most readers know I’ve been spending the bulk of my time working with my wife’s yarn shop Sheep’s Clothing. I’ve been moving my focus back to photography the past few months and have been doing pretty much exclusively in-studio portraits. With nothing that can’t be rescheduled I loaned out a spare camera and lens set to a friend’s (another photographer) daughter who doesn’t live close.

Long story short I’ve been shooting the past few months with only a single camera in the studio with the option of having another one show up overnight FedEx from one of the various rental houses or, if necessary a new one from one of the major shops. This is a great scenario if, say, the camera gave out Monday – Thursday. I say gave out because while I’ve lost strobes, lenses, radios, etc from dropping I’ve never lost a camera that way. Never until Friday night.

Thursday night, after an exhausting shoot,  I knocked the camera, 24-70 f/2.8 lens, and pocket wizard FlexTT5 off of a stool that I should never have left it on. 6-7lb dropping 36″ to hit a hard floor did bad things… but other than the sheared off FlexTT5 everything seemed to be working. I didn’t test a Plus II at that time, though. Saturday morning… not so much. Camera wouldn’t power on and even after diagnosing and fixing that problem a Plus II on the camera wouldn’t fire.

My shoot on Saturday went off wired to the lights and with the camera literally taped up (with white gaffer’s tape since I couldn’t find the black) and went well. Thank you to everyone who offered to loan me a camera for Sunday. The camera won’t fire a PW Plus II anymore that I was planning to use on Saturday but it will fire the FlexTT5 and MiniTT1 and with some work I got it to accept batteries Saturday night so Sunday went off without a hitch (and without tape!). There are some advantages to my past career and electronics hobby.

In the end replacement parts are winging their way to me as I type this but the moral stands. If you are ever on a shoot that will be expensive or impossible to reschedule (weddings come to mind) carry backup equipment for everything. And from now on even during light times in the studio I’ll always have a backup camera.