We got shooed out of the original location for this shoot, but as always, preparation is key, so we went to backup (Waverton) instead. I'm not sure if a park was the best place for the theme, because I had a particular look in mind when I decided on the original shoot. But you can do pretty much anything if you limit the background anyway. 

This shoot is Experimental, because it was my first cosplay shoot using two strobes. The primary was mounted on a tripod and diffused through an umbrella, while the secondary remained on a GorillaPod and was moved around, either to balance the primary, or to provide hair light. The experimental nature of the shoot is evident in the single shots, where I pretty much used a different style for every character. Overall, for an experiment, I was pretty happy with the results, but this represents a reset of the learning curve, so I'll have to eventually build things up again.

Problems:

1) Wirelessly triggering the flashes via the Minolta/Sony system meant lower reliability, because the strobes read the infrared signals coming from the onboard popup flash in order to function, so requiring pretty much line of sight when outdoors to function. This could be the main motivation for changing systems.

2) Difficulty in controlling lighting when the cosplayers are at two or more different depths. This is just a problem with my skill, and could in the future be resolved by snooting and precisely aiming the secondary, or using a second umbrella + stand.

3) Using an umbrella outside was a bit of a pain because the wind threatened to destroy the rig every few minutes.

Once again, thank you everyone for coming! 

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I did this shoot of the Nendoroid Petit Snow Miku (Good Smile Company) for the corresponding review on Hunting the Elusive.

When the item arrived my item shooting studio (study desk in my room) had pretty much lapsed into a state of mess and dust, so lacking a place to conduct a shoot, I used the top of one of my scanners. It has a brushed metal surface finish, and I had never bothered taking off the transparent film which protected the lid. I put a poster behind it for a more uniform background, white side facing camera, of course.

Soon, I realised I could get pretty nice reflections off the surface, which was a bonus. Lighting was pretty much 100% with flash, since I had just regained my original flash unit (which if you will recall, was broken at the last cosplay shoot). I had bought a replacement just in case, but that meant now I had two flashes, which is something I had been intending to move into for some time.

The flash had the effect of casting a shadow from the scanner onto the backgrounding poster. I could probably have eliminated this by moving the background closer to the scanner, but I thought it made an interesting horizon effect, so I just left it. There were also reflections from the plastic covering being projected up to the background. My reaction to that? Ditto.

Lighting arrangement was pretty basic, one strobe unit on camera right, a bit farther away, another on camera left, closer to the shooting stage. All this allowed for somewhat softer shadows. The last wallpaper shot was done over the figure (which was just lying there), and the two flashes bouncing off the ceiling. The camera was freely held (as opposed to many previous figure shoots which had not used flash, and as a result required a tripod for stability and long shutters).

Lens: Minolta 50mm f2.8 Macro. Flash control: Sony's wireless system.

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By this time, I have done a number of fireworks shoots. The standard BULB mode, open and close the shutter depending on the timing of the fireworks, and you get pretty and colourful light trails. If you are dexterous enough and your timing precise enough, you get some pretty good shots. A nice wide lens will hopefully get everything in there, plus a slice of sparkling cityscape. But I wanted to break up the monotony a little. bitter*girls, for example, used a lensbaby and video to create a dreamy version of fireworks.

Lacking both imagination and equipment, I could only think to combine zoom burst with fireworks, forcing a cross of two time axes (the zoom time and the fireworks moving time) to hopefully increase the complexity of the result. Some of it turned out lacklustre, but I found a number of shots compelling, almost like abstract photos of the cosmos. I found particularly interesting how some of the fireworks sparks blurred to such a degree they took on the appearance of smoke in the final exposure.

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A rather more unusual shoot this time round, in that it was a single shoot for Nagato Yuki (series: Haruhi) only. Two photographers, one cosplayer, and one/two bag-watchers/Monster Hunter players. Also unusual as in it was the most number of times I've been asked to "move on" in one day of shooting. The record now stands at three (accosted by security at the Conservatorium of Music, CarriageWorks, and part of USYD). The good thing of course is that it forced us to move around so we had a variety of settings.

I'm not sure what's been happening these past few days, but I have a feeling security is tightening up around various venues, for reasons yet unknown to me. Time to find more locations where we will be left alone. For future reference: tips for avoiding security: try not to wander around too much (we got lost), and don't shoot near the toilets of any particular place (everyone needs to go...including security). Then again, if you are in an indoor location, and playing with DSLRs, the camera noise and flash (if you use flash) will attract attention anyway.

Technical: For this shoot I used the Minolta 24mm (2.8) and 50mm (1.7) primes (mostly 24mm for the start of the shoot, switched to 50mm later). While I find that the depth of field for 1.7 is a bit too shallow, I was also experimenting with that setting in a number of shots. Also, I broke the hotshoe on my flash during this shoot. The tripod it was on fell down; I was lucky the lamp itself wasn't damaged. A replacement is on the way.

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