On-location shoot: A self assessment

I know I have not blogged in a while.. but I'm about to renew my blogging efforts, starting 1-2-3- NOW!

Now that my first on-location shoot is in the past, I can sit back and evaluate all the things that were fine, and the things that went wrong.. It was a great learning experience.

1. You may surprise yourself! The thing I was most nervous about was the social aspect. I am not a social person at all. I couldnt imagine standing there telling a group of people where to stand, and telling them to move back or forth, switch places. etc. That was the least of my problems, which is a good thing and a bad thing.. The good thing about it is that I learned when you're put in a social situation where you think you might want to run away and get under your covers, if you know that youre here to do a job, and push yourself, you can do it! The bad part is, that there were mistakes made at all. One thing that I wasnt focusing on, was who was who.. I shot pictures of the people that came.. and its really weird... when going through and editing these pictures.. I'm thinking "OMG... this is the grandmother" and I didn't give the moment the attention it deserved.. I can't really stress about that, since I didnt really get the time in advance to make a list of people I need to shoot etc.

2. Use the Equipment you know: So, I thought I was a big hotshot with access to an upgraded camera that just got out in the market and lenses I didnt own, and I took advantage of that. Big mistake. Despite of the fact that the Nikon D300s is an upgraded version of the Nikon D200, which i use.. there were still changes that I need to know about before using the camera. Besides. even if the features are exactly the same as the one you use, the smallest change can throw you off. Another 1/4 pound of weight, an 1/8th of an inch bigger on the camera body, can throw you off.. It just is not comfortable to you YET. Going into my first on-location job with a camera that wasn't yet "a part of me" was the biggest blunder yet. More about that on #3

3. Never use/buy a DSLR camera that just got out on the market. If you are like me, you'll always want the new stuff. This is a big mistake. First of all, despite great expectations the D300s was a big disappointment. Raising the ISO brought in noise, which i thought it was going to improve on. Reviews havent been made. Not enough, anyway. Second of all, and this I did not expect, and did not even think of.. It takes time for Adobe to come out with the updated camera profiles. That really threw me for a loop and created a whole lot of aggravation. I couldn't open the files. Even the nikon software I had a problem with upgrading for the D300s. This added another 2 weeks to my processing workflow which is not good.

So, Now that I've learned these lessons who wants to hire me for shoot #2, so I can learn some more.. :)?