10.08.2016 Jan Gonzales

Inside the camera bag of X-Photographer – Jan Gonzales

Jan Gonzales

Based in Cebu, Philippines. An hour plane ride from the capital city of Manila. 1995 was the year I started photography. I'm self-taught, I do all post production and retouching of my photos. I usually photograph people for commercial and for my personal portfolio. Patience, experiment and experience create great photos.

I am an X-Photographer based in Cebu, Philippines that specializes in visual direction and production of high end images for advertising and portraiture. My work often comprises from commercial portraiture to multiple composite images into one final image for personal work and advertising.
I started using Fujifilm when the X100 came out . I must admit, I have been attracted by how it looked and immediately bought it. After using it, I was totally in love with how it rendered the colors. I am technically a strobist person and I love to bring my lights on location for a shoot, personal project or commercial.
As an advertising photographer, one will be given assignments to shooting landscape, architecture, food or all together with the usual human elements in it. The workflow that I always have is giving the art director visual while the shoot is in progress. By doing so, I have a second wifi sd card on the second slot of my Fujifilm camera. I set up the camera to record RAW(1st card) + JPG (2nd card) and send the jpg image to my iPad for real time viewing and at the same time serving as a bigger wireless preview of my images. This setup is really very useful also outdoors without a having a computer on location.

The camera remote feature of the Fujifilm X system really shines when I shoot food projects specially in the “flat lay” angle, Where I boom up my Fujifilm camera, use the wifi card in it to send real time view of the images taken to an iPad and I enable the wireless remote feature of the camera to see the setup below and controlling the camera using my mobile phone. Very very convenient setup for this type of shooting.

Currently, the items in my Thinktank Roller Derby are:

1 x X-T2
1 x X-Pro2
1 x X-70
8 x NP-W126 Batteries
4 x SD Cards
1 x Black Tag/Black Rapid Camera Strap (Modified)
1 x Transcend WiFi card (for iPad Tethering)
XF 56 F1.2R APD
XF 23 F1.4
XF 35 F2
XF 90 F2
XF 16-55 F2.8
XF 10-24 F4
XF 50-140 F2.8
Cybersync Cyber Commander
Cybersync Trigger Transmitter
Lee Belows Hood
Lee ND Filters (.3, .6 and .9)
Pocketwizard Plus 3 Trigger Transmitter
Pocketwizard Plus 2 Trigger Transmitter
Pocketwizard Subminiphone Remote Pre-Trigger Cable
Macbook Pro 15” Custom Matte Screen
Ipad Pro 12.9”
Thinktank Roller Derby

When shooting on location, I have another bag that houses my lighting equipment. The ThinkTank Production Manager 40.

6 x Paul C. Buff Einstein 640
Modifiers
2 x Paul C. Buff Lithium Extreme Batteries
Powercords
Lightstands
Gels
Thinktank Production Manager 40

This is what I have in my bag and I am very happy to share how I do my commercial work with my Fujifilm X system with you. Thank you for watching.