PhotographyBanzai.com

Usually I write a summary at the bottom of my articles that are primarily meant to update viewers about new photographs. This time I’m separating the technical into its own article so that I can go into a bit more detail. On Friday I had attended a small photo session at Cantigny Garden in the morning and afternoon. Once that was finished, I had around 1.5 hours to spend at Chicago Comic Con. I made the most of it and ended up with around 100 photos of cosplayers and costumers. Friday at the convention: Pentax K-5 camera Pentax FA* 24mm f2 lens Sigma flash, diffuser, green flash gel placed in the diffuser. Time was limited, so I used one camera and lens with a focus on covering what cosplay I ran into. I was pleasantly surprised by the level of activity so late in the day. There were plenty of people cosplaying, even more so than I remember seeing on the Sunday of Comic Con 2011. My intention with the flash gel was to equalize the color of the flash light to ambient. The gel ...

I don’t often do private photoshoots. I generally like just walking around and randomly asking for photos of cosplayers. However, I don’t mind and will usually take them on if someone contacts me. ACEN wasn’t a definite plan until very soon before the convention started, so I only really had two people contact me within the time that I knew I was going. Revy from Black Lagoon The reason I don’t do private shoots very often? I don’t like carrying around a ton of equipment. It’s usually expected that a private shoot should be more involved and result in images that are something more than the average convention picture. That means more elaborate gear than I normally use. This time I kind of took the middle road and brought just enough to get more variation to the private shoot photos compared to the hallway cosplay photos I normally take. The negative was that I carried around more than I needed 90% of the time.  Female Fujimoto From Ponyo Equipment for hallway photos this year:...

I wanted to go over the techniques I used at this convention partly for a personal log and also for anyone who might find the discussion of techniques interesting. This really is just a selection of techniques, but a good overview nonetheless. Primary Equipment: Pentax K-5 camera body Pentax FA 31mm f1.8 lens Sigma 530 DG Super flash + Stofen diffuser (used in certain situations) Pentax DA 50-200mm WR lens (fashion show and masquerade) K-7 + DA 55mm f1.4 SDM (only used them once for a private shoot) Kata 3N1-22 backpack Camera modes: The K-5 camera body has 5 selectable setting modes allowing the photographer to select and save settings in those 5 slots. I used three slots primarily, which I will go over below. I’ll also include any other factors in how that mode was used. USER Mode 1 (flash photography): – ISO fixed (usually 80, but a range for creative and testing reasons) – Av mode (usually large aperture) – Exposure compensation like -2 inside, only slight reduction like -2/3rds ou...

I’ve been interested in insuring my camera equipment for a while now. Considering online retail value, my gear is getting up there in total cost. So much so that in my current situation I would not be able to replace much of it if something were to happen. I’m personally focused on just insuring my equipment as I don’t really do much that deals with professional liability like a photographer that owns a studio. My research so far brings me to a few companies: Zurich North America They are said to be one of the insurance companies that is open to photographers, but there site doesn’t say anything on the subject. Hill & Usher They seem to be one of the most open companies toward photographers as their site includes a lot of information on the subject. The policy they show on their site seems geared toward professionals with studios or people that derive a lot of their income from photography State Farm I have general insurance from them, so I thought they would be a good option. ...