What’s in my Beauty Photography gear bag?
Backpack or rolling case? Read on to find out…
Are you curious about how the camera bag of a beauty photographer might differ somewhat from your standard kit? Look no further, I am a photographer that specialises in studio beauty photography and I would like to share with you what I carry around in my bag, what I use them for and why.
First up, what do I carry my stuff around in? Truth be told, I could get away with using my small Profoto backpack to get the essentials in with just one camera body, it does the job very well and it looks nice and compact. As a professional photographer, I wouldn’t recommend it —I now cart all of my gear around in a Manfrotto rolling case. I learnt the hard way about the importance of back backup camera bodies and being prepared for every eventuality, including failing equipment. I always carry a spare camera body with me to all jobs.
One day, I drove 90 minutes from my house to shoot products for a friend’s new makeup brand. We were around half way through the shoot when my shutter just stopped working and no amount of fiddling and resetting was bringing it back to life. Fortunately my boyfriend was living not too far from the studio at that time and had the same Canon body that I did. Like a knight in shining armour, he rushed over to lend me his camera so that we could finish our shoot.
I’m grateful that this happened early on in my career and whilst shooting for a good friend of mine, who was very understanding. Since that occasion, I have never left for a shoot without a backup camera body. I primarily shoot on my Canon R5 and have a Canon 5D Mark II as my backup. I also recommend bringing extra battery chargers, batteries for radio triggers and definitely an extra tether cord.
Always pack a spare camera body!!
Here are my kit bag essentials for shooting tethered beauty:
Memory cards, even though I shoot tethered, I always bring them incase of any equipment failure relating to my laptop
Tether cords x 2, my tether cables have been the most temperamental item in my kit throughout my career so far. Do not bring one, they’re untrustworthy little critters
A grey card, I like to always get the right colour balance in camera before any retouching or colour grading happens. Skin tones are always such a tricky thing to get right and I always want to make sure the white balance is correct at the start of post production
My MacBook Pro for tethering as standard. I have a colour monitor that I occasionally use, but that mostly stays at home for post production and retouching.
Portable SSD cards, I bring 2 x Samsung T5 everywhere my laptop and camera goes. These are non negotiable, at the end of every shoot I make sure I have backed up all the Raw images in two separate places. I used to use Lacie’s, but they are too temperamental and slow for my liking. The Samsung T5 are more compact, more reliable and a lot quicker to use in post production
The four lenses that live in my bag are:
Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro
Canon 70-200mm f/4
Canon 24-70mm f/2.8
Don’t forget your trigger. I use the Profoto AirRemote.
My go to lens for shooting beauty is the 100mm Macro. It’s the sharpest lens and it’s a prime, so it doesn’t get too heavy whilst shooting for long periods. It’s my default for close up macro beauty shots.
When I’m not shooting macro beauty, I like to use the 70-200mm. I love the freedom it allows me to get different crops without constantly changing lenses or moving around. I find changing prime lenses on shoots can really stall the process, the shoot doesn’t flow so well and slows down the process. I love the look of the 200mm zoom when shooting beauty, but for me it doesn’t give me the crispy super sharp effect that I get on the 100mm macro lens. I like to use it for model portfolios mostly.
The 24-70mm was the second lens I ever bought after the 50mm prime, that has now been banished from my backpack. Now it’s just a back up or if I need to shoot some model polaroids for a model agent.
I’m thinking about renting out the 180mm Canon Macro in the near future to see if it’s something I would like to add to my kit. The 180mm will give me a tighter crop on the models face whilst letting me be further away from my subject, reducing the likelihood of blocking the light when shooting close up macro on the model’s face.
I also carry a speed light around in my case, which might be considered a weird use of space for a beauty photographer. I actually use it as a backup light incase of strobes failing or a power outage as its run on batteries. I use the Profoto A1, which comes with a diffusion dome to soften the flash, a range of grids can be bought as extras as well as colour gels that click on. It becomes a really versatile and compact piece of equipment that can be mounted on camera for a direct flash that I love or mounted on a tripod and triggered like a strobe.
I always carry two external hard drives to back up in two locations to be safe. I use Samsung SSD cards.
If you want to get started in beauty photography, I recommend hiring equipment to start off with. Although I know a lot of people say it’s not about the equipment, it’s how you use it, which is true in most cases — I would say in the genre of beauty photography, it’s a bit of both. My top recommendation would be investing in a lens, try out a 100mm macro lens from a rental company and if you like it, have that be your first investment along with a full frame sensor camera.
Second to a lens, get a tether cable and start using CaptureOne — Beauty work is all about the detail, that’s something you won’t see on camera preview. Your team and portfolio will thank you for it.
Have any questions or anything you would like me to write about in her next blog post? Leave me a comment below.
Ciao for now!
Chloe x