On any given day I would have postponed Celeste and Jon’s trash-the-dress shoot at Noordhoek yesterday… I had been warned that the weather was horrible but the problem is the couple were flying back to the UK the next day… the show had to go on!!
Walking on to the beach I realized this was far more than I had bargained for, I’m usually the guy that tends to tread where Angels fear to… anything to get the shot! This was one time I had very serious doubts!
The wind was one thing but the sand was an entirely different story! Expensive camera equipment and sand are not the best of friends!!
I made a choice to use my 70-200 for the whole shoot because it is weather sealed and there are no outside moving parts apart from the focus and zoom ring, the entire lens assembly is housed internally so you don’t have a lens that telescopically moves in and out as you do on some of the other lenses, if sand were to get in to the lens this is the most likely spot.
After the shoot I used compressed air to blow any sand away before even contemplating removing the lens from the body….. I’m quite sure it’s all sorted but there is a niggle that daring to do what I did could have been very stupid indeed!! Time will tell and it’s all “spilt milk now” so I’m not going to concern myself with worry.
I was recently asked why by a pro lens over a knockoff or a consumer lens when the difference in picture quality can sometimes be very difficult to tell… well… shooting on a beach with sand flying everywhere is why! I’ve had cheaper lenses and they were okay but they never would have taken the beating that the pro lens did yesterday!
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