PhotographyBanzai.com

As I spend a good deal of my photography time at conventions taking photos of people in a multitude of lighting conditions, often that means utilizing add-on flash to add fill light or just fully light a scene. I’ve primarily been a natural light photographer for years. Although, I’ve always recognized the positive benefits adding my own light to a scene can bring. Most of my reluctance is due to portability, added components (more to carry around and bring to a shoot), and difficulties I’ve had getting consistent results with the Pentax flash system before I found a few techniques that work well. Although, what brings me to write this article is two fold. I saw yet another posting on the Pentax Forums , which brings up the suggestion that Pentax should improve the on-camera flash to make it useful by adding things like tilt, swivel, and more power. My response to this is a definite no thank you . Pentax is partly defined by their ability to make small yet powerful cameras. A built-in ...

I went to a three day convention on May 20th – 22nd and almost exclusively used the K-5 without any issues. Around a week after getting back I visited a local park to get out of the house and take some nice scenic photos. As I began to take photos, it started making strange mirror slapping sounds when any button on the camera was pressed. I took the lens off and hand cycled the aperture mechanism, took out the battery for a few seconds, and cleaned off the lens contacts. The issue went away. I assumed it was just a fluke. Here's the mirror flop in action:  I found this posting on the Pentax Forums that described the same issue I was having, but at the time I thought it might have just been a fluke. Oddly enough, the original poster is located around 100 miles from me. I wondered if maybe it was just a one time issue due to the change in weather… A few days later I went to a local airshow. This time the K-5 had the problem, but much more serious. The mirror flipping issue...

So you might be thinking to yourself that a camera with GPS isn’t something new. The really interesting stuff comes with some detail about the accessory, which I’ll go over below. Here is what it will look like (Pentax stock image): Important features to me: – Weather resistant construction to go along with the K-5 and presumably a DA* lens. – Astrotracer!!! This is a seriously amazing feature if it works as advertised. It is said to use the GPS, camera orientation sensors, and the shake-reduction mechanism inside the camera to do astro-tracking of stars. This should allow the camera to have longer exposure times before star trails start showing up. If this feature works as advertised I will seriously consider picking one up. – It will of course have the standard GPS camera features like GEO tagging too. It doesn’t really say if the information will be written into the EXIF or not, so we will have to see about that. Another cool feature is simple navigation to destinations. I’m liking ...

Today PentaxForums.com released a review comparing the Canon 7D and Pentax K-5. Overall I think it is a really interesting review for a person who uses either system. I think they tried to be as non-fanboy-ish as possible by bringing out the best and worst of each system. Here is the review link: http://www.pentaxforums.com/reviews/Canon_7D_vs_Pentax_K5.php It brought up the pretty well known differences: – The 7D has great AF and video control. – The K-5 has a great sensor and ergonomics. They both have high build quality, weather resistance, fast operation, and a multitude of other similar features. Obviously both camera bodies would be a great photography tool to use if you can afford the entry price. I think it also explains why the K-5 came out around $1500 and has held a strong price since then.

Today I went out to a local park for the nice weather and to get some practice. This time I used two lenses that don’t get as much usage as some of my others. The 100mm f2.8 Macro and 10-17mm Fisheye lenses. Here are a few photos: A small photo can’t do justice to just how sharp that photo is at 100% detail. It was taken with the 100mm f2.8 macro lens. The K-5 and 100mm lens can achieve high vibrancy: A nice flat field: Bokeh is great with this lens: If you are looking for a lens to create epic feeling images, the 10-17mm Fisheye should be a contender: The 10-17 would be useful for unique one-man videos: The 10-17 has the ability to focus very close: I’m a sucker for photos like this: Not your normal architecture lens:

In case you haven’t heard of the term, A photo bomb happens when someone in the background intentionally looks at the camera, or even makes a funny face to seemingly ruin a photograph. In my mind I think they are pretty amusing and the photos have a value all there own. Well, that is of course all within reason. Too much or not going away, so I can eventually get a quality shot of my subject is irritating. Below I’ll show you the best bombers I had for this years Anime Central convention. This guy knows how to photo bomb. He first started with a peace sign, but then moved up to a full face bomb. The reason he was successful was because he was close enough to the subject that his features were not obscured in blur. I think it was one of Batman’s friends… The next guy gave a great effort, so much so that I got irritated after a while and said “Dude, please!” He promptly left after that. Stick to your guns, but make it short and sweet. The photo bomb wasn’t successful because he was maki...

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 finally finished processing photos. Sunday was a bit easier to get through than Saturday of course. Besides the Prince of Tennis gathering, I just spent my time walking around and taking miscellaneous cosplay photos. So when processing was all said and done it took me around 4 days to post-process 3 days of photos. I had around 20 camera raw setting saves that I selected through, so that I could give my photos this year a common natural yet vibrant feel to them (I did hand tweak images that didn’t fit in those sets).  While some of the images might feel a bit bright or over exposed (depending on your monitor, I have an ViewSonic VP2365wb E-IPS based LCD monitor set to give me true colors), that was the direction I was going and how I perceived events. It’s primarily a style choice on my part. Clean vibrancy. Some highlight images of the day: My final cosplay of the day, a Jedi Ninja Turtle. What a perfect way to end the event for me as I am an avid fan on Ninja Turtles: Sitting o...

Saturday was probably the biggest day photography wise. A lot of random cosplay photos in the halls as well as the masquerade and fashion show. A few highlight images: Cosplay at Anime conventions encompasses more than just things from Japan. An excellent Master Chief cosplay: I believe this person and a few others were a walking advertisement for a Renaissance fair. Very excellent makeup work and how they never broke character: Angle is sometimes important when trying to minimize busy backgrounds: A finely tailored cosplay: A shot of the masquerade event: All event shots like this and the fashion show were taken with the Pentax 50-200mm WR lens on the K-5. It’s surprising how sharp the lens is at 200mm f5.6 considering how relatively cheap it is. That combo is surprisingly strong for events like that thanks to the high ISO capability and fast auto-focus of the K-5 camera body. I really liked how the framing in this image turned out: I really like the feel of movement and action in thi...

I’m back from the 3-day Anime convention in Rosemont Illinois. Started processing photos, but it is slow work. I tweak every image by hand in Adobe camera raw and sometimes make a few modifications once the image is opened up in Photoshop. A a few highlight photos from Friday (day 1): As you can see, I forced myself to use the flash in some situations. The Sigma did well considering I was having issues with it in the past. Used Av mode and HHS enabled on the flash, but I controlled both the aperture and ISO. If I let the camera control the ISO it does screwy things, so I just set it to 80 outdoors and a mixture of higher ISO indoors unless I want dark backgrounds from light fall-off. For this type of work I don’t need to control the shutter speed, so I prefer letting the camera do that. Day 2 (Saturday) and day 3 (Sunday) will be coming in the future.