Tonight I'm meeting my friend Frederick Van Johnson at Oracle Arena to watch the Golden State Warriors play the Toronto Raptors. We have great seats, Row 16, so it's a tempting photo shoot as well as an exciting sporting event.

Based on the nerve-wracking trial that Mikkel Aaland endured a couple weeks ago where he had to check his backpack of expensive Nikon gear, I thought it would be a good idea to discuss cameras with Frederick before the event.

This is a situation where mirrorless cameras are so handy. It's not so much that the bodies are smaller. There's no real rule limiting how big your camera is. It's the size of the lens that's important. You can't bring glass longer that 3" into the arena unless you have a media pass.

My Olympus 75mm f/1.8 is exactly 3" long. That gives me an effective reach of 150mm with a very fast aperture. Frederick is bringing his Panasonic Lumix GX7. I have so wanted to shoot with that camera. (I invited him to the game before I knew he had this cool camera.)

We'll get all of this great gear through security because it's small. After that, it's game time. When you're a photographer and a spectator, size does matter. There's not getting around it.

-Derrick