Page 3 - NyghtVision Magazine Volume 3 #4

welcome

his is our second annual gear issue.

THaving said that, I want to emphasize that this issue isn't just about gear - the latest,
greatest, neatest, most inventive...... It really is about how we live and work. That might
not make sense at first blush but I can't emphasize how important gear is to us - every bit
of it - and we choose it wisely and carefully. We never know where we will find ourselves
or how dangerous the conditions will be. We depend upon our gear to survive as much as we depend
upon it to translate a raw image into a finished photograph.
From the plains of the American Midwest, to the dense forests of Honduras, from the urban urban-
scapes of New York, to the gentle and frigid grace of Copenhagen, we have pressed ourselves and our gear
to the limits time and again. It didn't take long to learn that outside the safety of the studio, the world can
be a rough and difficult place to work.
Case in point, on the facing page, JD stands ankle deep in new fallen snow somewhere north of Cedar
City, Utah, having survived a dangerous attempt to get to Bryce Canyon in the Winter. Our rental car,
a Sebring convertible, didn't have snow tires and we found ourselves on a very narrow two lane road
well up into the mountains with signs warning that without chains we were in grave danger. Eventually,
there was so much ice on the road, we were forced to turn back. His Think Tank belt around his waist,
special thermal gloves, and layered clothing allowed us to survive a situation that could have lead to hy-
perthermia. We were out of cell phone range and had we not been prepared, the results could have been
catastrophic.
This year has seen incredible improvements to the software we use and we will look at new and up-
dated products from DxO. Mindshift from Thank Tank is another landmark in their ongoing redesign of
how photographers work in the field. Not everything in the magazine is new. We will look at the Ricoh
645D, an incredible camera that was released in 2010.

Falcon

editor-in-chief

For the First Time
Fall 2013 | 3