PhotographyBanzai.com

I’ve started making “first person” style excursion videos. Basically what I do is take a camera and lens combo with me as I explore a place and also get some much needed exercise. I record as normal with the camera such that you see what I see instead of the camera facing me. I try to add some commentary to the videos, which often is my opinion or comments on the equipment I’m using. I’ll try to mix things up even more in the future to make things as interesting as possible. The major benefit to these videos is that they are great motivation to get out and do things to stay healthy and just enjoy the simple things in life. That video was taken at Rock Cut with the 10-17mm fisheye lens and K-01 camera. It’s a great combo for videos and I’d like to use the fisheye more often for that purpose. I’m sure the fisheye look doesn’t appeal to everyone, but I personally like it. My second video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT2CnIOS7GQ That video was taken with the Pentax 24mm f2 lens a...

What is SoyCon? (taken from their website): SoyCon is a 2-day annual cosplay gathering event full of food, photos, and fun. This event is the best way for everyone to come out and socialize with fans alike. There’s also events for attendees to participate in. Events such as roleplay battles, costume contest, and a variety acts show. Come on down to SoyCon: The Largest Cosplay Gathering of The Midwest! Photos on Facebook Soycon Soycon founder Equipment and techniques: I was using the K-01 with the 24mm f2 lens and the K-5 with the 85mm f1.4 lens. For whatever reason I had quite a few back focused images with the K-01+24mm and some front focused images with the K-5+85mm. It’s too bad because some of the images with focus issues would have been nice framing and content wise.   I’m not sure if it was the general lighting conditions or something else, because I don’t remember having focus issues with the K-5+85mm combo in the past. I might have to look into that and see if I can...

A friend of mine set up a meetup at Anderson Gardens. We had initially intended to have this meetup focus on cosplay photography, but as things work out often in Rockford, only one cosplayer was able to make it. The largest issue being that most people in the convention scene live in the Chicago area.  EDIT: If you have plans to visit this garden, please respect their policies regarding photography. Groups would need permission or more likely paying for access after hours. They've had issues with cosplayers and photographers over the years, so be someone that sets a good example instead!  A pathway of the garden. The garden has a lot of chipmunks!  I’ll admit it is difficult sometimes making the 90 mile trip to the Chicago area for conventions and other events, so it’s understandable. The girl cosplaying is a character from the popular Sailor Moon (a show and manga target toward girls and women). EDIT: Dani, Rest in peace. :( Here are a few highlights of the excursion: ...

I did a quick test on three lenses that I have to see if they are Parfocal or Varifocal. If you are unfamiliar with those terms, Parfocal is a type of zoom lens that does not have focus shift when the lens is zoomed throughout the focal length range. This is a great feature for video work because the photographer can achieve focus and zoom without the need to refocus.  It is also helpful in general photography where a photographer can zoom in, achieve focus, and then zoom out to take a more wide angle image. Varifocal lenses are basically the opposite in that as the focal length changes, the focal point will move. These tend to be easier to design and construct, so most photography lenses are Varifocal. I tested the Pentax 10-17mm Fisheye, the Pentax DA 50-200mm f4-f5.6 WR, and the DA 18-55mm f3.5-f5.6. The results were mixed. While depth of field shouldn’t be too much of an issue, it was still difficult to detect a significant enough change or no change at all to say whether a len...

I was able to have a brief hands on with the new Pentax K-30 camera body at Camera Craft Inc. in Rockford, Illinois. EDIT, they closed down when the owner retired.  My overall impressions: The camera feels a lot more solid than I expected it to be. Of course, the casing is all plastic, but it has a solid feel to it. From what I can recall from the K-x and K-r, they feel cheap compared to the K-30 by a good margin. The grip is probably one of the better ones to come out from Pentax. It isn’t as soft as the K-5, but is actually a bit better in fitting all of my fingers on the grip (instead of the pinky being off the camera. It still isn’t tall enough for my entire hand to be completely comfortable, but a bit better. The design reminds me of the K-10/K-20 and I can’t say I like that. I think Pentax’s best design from the Digital age would be the K-7/K-5 as well as the *ist D. There are some embellishments that I think might have a little bit of function to them, but their primar...

I went to Anime Midwest on Saturday to take photos and enjoy the convention. I was asked to take photos at the Pillowcases concert as well as the Masquerade, so that took some time from general hallway cosplay, but was a fun diversion. Overall, I’m pretty happy with the resulting photographs. Enjoy! EDIT, I suggest that you do your research about Anime Midwest and its owner before you consider going to their conventions.  I also have my photos exported to my Photography Banzai Facebook page if you want to tag yourself: http://www.facebook.com/PhotographyBanzai Equipment wise, I was using the K-01 and K-5 camera bodies with the 14mm f2.8 and 85mm f1.4 lenses (Sigma add-on flash attached to the K-5). This is a really solid combination that allows for a wide range of framing possibilities. I was even able to manage decently well when asked to cover the concert and Masquerade. A few highlight images from the event:  There were some really nice cosplays on display at Anime Mi...

A group of people I know from the convention scene went back to an abandoned church in Gary, Indiana recently. This was a great opportunity to try out some off-camera flash, so I went all the way and bought another Cactus V5 and a middle-weight tripod for a setup I was planning. Here are some highlight photos from the excursion:  Here is the lighting setup: The strobist lighting setup consists of: 2x Yongnuo YN460-II flash units Custom Brackets CB-Mini flash bracket 1x Cactus V5 trigger A flash extension wire (has a hotshoe on both ends) A Manfrotto MKC3-H01 tripod The flash extension takes place of a second trigger or using the optical slave method. Both of which would have either a downfall in expense or usability.  The optical slave method could cause issues with orientating the flash heads away from each other and, of course, having two triggers would mean more cost and more batteries to deal with. I used this setup most of the time and it worked quite well. With cosp...

I went on a big excursion recently where I used off-camera flash and full manual setting control. The nice thing about Pentax cameras is that you can have a few conveniences in manual that make setting changes faster and more accurate.  Cameras and  Cactus V5  flash transceivers. For example, changing the green button functionality from “P Line” to “Av Shift” allows you to get a quick exposure reading that changes the aperture, but not the shutter speed. This is important when you are limited to the flash sync speed of your camera, because you don’t want the green button to select a shutter speed that will be too fast for the flash to function with. “P Line” (aka. Program Line) bases your sampled exposure on a number of simple options. There is one for maximum sharpness (MTF), one for maximum background blur, one for action, one for landscape, and so on. The flash sync speed is the fastest shutter speed that still allows for your camera’s sensor to be completely visible w...

I decided to do a quick test to see how my collection of 58mm UV filters damage image quality. I also took an image without a filter to see what difference using no filter makes.  A simple test. Why do I personally use filters? I want the added protection that a filter brings as well as the simplicity of cleaning a filter instead of the front element of the lens. I occasionally take the filter off when I know the situation will cause issues such as extreme reflections from that added glass. This test was intended to test reflection and glare, not image sharpness. I might eventually do another test to see if there is a reduction in sharpness. Here is an image with all filters and the no filter sample. Here is the video I put together as I was testing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-ituue1zeo Get the replacement Hoya 58mm EVO Antistatic UV(0) Filter here: B&H Photo Video Amazon.com Used from KEH.com Get the Hoya 58mm Ultraviolet UV(0) Super Multi-Coated (S-HMC) Glass Haze Filter he...

Yesterday I took some photos at a local arboretum for the person in the photos. Overall the results turned out decent, but I was having some issues with judging the level of exposure. I’ll talk about that more after the photo break. Here are additional example photo from the photo session: I again went with the combination I used for my event at the Botanic Garden in Chicago. As per usual, I shoot in RAW format and post process in Adobe Bridge / Camera Raw. Once I finish up with tweaking each photo, I run an automated batch process in Photoshop to create JPEGs. K-01 with 14mm f2.8 Used in aperture priority at f5.6 for the entire time. Some fill light and additional contrast was added to most images in post. K-5 with 55mm f1.4 Used with an external flash and in aperture priority with some negative exposure compensation. I didn’t deal well with some of the extreme exposure variation. I should have decreased the overall exposure more than I had in many of the situations. My aperture...