Well after a LONG winter, we may finally get a spring. It’s now a good time for some photography spring cleaning. It’s always a good idea to spend some time with your gear and make sure everything is in working order. The pursuit of truth and beauty requires your gear to be ready. You want to make sure your gear is clean. When you clean, sort, and organize your gear, it makes life easier.
Here are suggestions for spring cleaning.
Check Your Metadata
One thing you have to check is your camera’s metadata. If you live in an area that has daylight savings time you have to make sure your time is set. Another thing to keep in mind is your copyright data. Update it every year. This can be done in camera or in Lightroom as well.
Clean All You Lenses And Filters
It never hurts to grab your lens pen, a microfiber cloth and cup of coffee end give your lenses some tender loving care. Keeping your lenses clean and lent free enables you to pick them up and use them right away without worry. Make sure your lens caps stay in to avoid dust building up. This is especially important for the lenses you do not use every day.
Make Sure Your Sensors Are Clean
Ever take an epic photo, go to process it, and notice spots?
It’s a pain in the ass.
You can avoid this by taking a moment and either having your sensor cleaned or cleaning it yourself. Over time, no matter how careful you are, dust will appear. It’s better to have a clean sensor than having to add lots of time editing spots out of your photo. There are many tools to do this, there is no excuse for having a dirty sensor. Maintaining your camera is not a lot of work. It just takes time.
Do a Complete Inventory Check
Once you have cleaned everything in your kit. It’s a good time to take stock. Not just of your lenses and cameras, you need to know if you have everything you need to do the projects you have ahead of you. Having a good inventory list will let you know what you need to buy or rent to get your images.
Get Rid Of What You Don’t Need
When spring cleaning take a look at the gear you no longer need. Over time we collect gear as photographers. Some of that gear falls out of favor. Unless you have a reason to have repetitive gear, you can sell some of it. This can help fund new gear purchases as well. Too much unused gear is clutter. If you had a hard time choosing what to sell, make note of when you use gear. If a lens something does not pop up in a good amount of time, there is a good chance you don’t need it.
Clean Your Catalog And Back Up Your Images
When doing your spring cleaning, it’s important to take a moment and clean your catalog. When you shoot a lot you build up a lot of images you don’t use. They sit on your hard drive and take up space.If the images were mistakes or just repeats, be brutal and delete them. To keep up with them, rate your images as you process them. If you never rate them and don’t use them after a year, trash them. If you have not been doing so you should backup your catalog of images as well. If your hard drive ever goes, be prepared.