PhotographyBanzai.com

I just recently finished writing a book I titled “ Convention Photography ” (affiliate link to the book, I earn from qualifying purchases!) that I will soon be releasing on the Kindle and B&N Nook electronic reader platforms. To make certain the text is as smooth and as well written as possible, I printed the book out for proofing by a family member who is excellent at that sort of thing. It's fun to see it in physical form! If you have read my blog here before you probably have an idea of what conventions are about. If not, basically put there are large events where people of a mutual hobby attend. Often people dress up in costume, and in turn others photograph them. I attend those events to photograph others, so the book is mostly about that process.

I attended C2E2 on Saturday the 19th. Of course, I spent most of the 8 hours there photographing cosplayers and walking around. As this was my first Sci-Fi convention, I wasn’t sure how things would work. It’s pretty similar to an Anime convention, but the guests who attend are even more diverse than most anime conventions. I was really impressed by the costumes, as you could tell, a lot of them required some top-notch skills. The convention had an overall different feel than an Anime convention, but with many positive aspects. My setup consisted of the Pentax K-5, battery grip, and FA 31mm f1.8 Limited. I initially was shooting in what I like to call the built-in “bokeh mode” that keeps the camera set at max aperture, but I eventually moved to aperture priority and set to a fixed f2.0 for most of the convention. You can see EXIF data on my photo site if you are interested.   I had my first outing with the Kata 3N1-22 backpack/sling bag and it worked quite well. It was ...

I recently put together a basic home studio, so I could take some self-portraits. My goal here was to make post-processing a bit faster by having a uniform background and decent lighting. As this is a self-portrait setup, I wanted to implement a few tricks to make taking the photos easier and also get some nice creative framing without much repetition. First off, the camera setup: The photos above are a Pentax K-5 + battery grip, Pentax DA 14mm f2.8 lens, Sigma DG 530 Super flash with Sto-fen diffuser, Custom Brackets CB Mini, Vagabond ball head, and Slik Pro 700DX tripod. While I have light stands and slave flashes available, I felt this single setup was sufficient. The wide angle lens means I can achieve a larger depth of field such that I can avoid any issues with focus. To take photos of myself, I use a simple wireless infrared remote. It would be best to use a remote that can auto-focus the camera, but I don’t have one. That coupled with a camera that can do face-detection in...

I hooked up my Pentax K-5 to my LCD screen a few days ago to test out the functionality. As you may well know, the K-5 and K-7 are able to display live-view to an HDMI screen (and presumably standard composite). Pentax K-5 HDMI out My little test consisted of setting up the K-5 on a tripod hooked up to the LCD. I then filmed the LCD screen with my K-7 to display what the K-5’s live-view screen looks like displayed through HDMI out. Here is the K-5 with a HDMI cable attached (technically a down-converter that turns a standard HDMI connector into one of those mini-HDMI connectors): Here is a short video of the K-5 in action .  That screen I used is 1080p, but the K-5 wasn’t able to output that resolution. I’m not sure exactly what it was running at, but it looked pretty decent and as you can tell from the video that when absolute sharpness was obtained it was easily visible on the screen. Notice how the K-5 is able to do face detection. That feature plus the use of an external scr...