Another convention has come and gone. This time it was Kollision Con 2012 located in St. Charles Illinois at the Pheasant Run Resort.
All of the Photos:
Facebook (Masquerade, Saturday, Sunday)
For this convention, I was pretty limited with the DSLR gear I had on hand. I’m still trying to sell off some of my Pentax lenses, so that cash is tied up until it happens. I do have a few Nikon lenses on order from KEH, but that will probably be a few days until they arrive. Being challenged is part of the fun, so I didn’t have any qualms going into a convention like this.
- Nikon D7000
- Nikon 50mm f1.8g (crop makes it similar to 85mm focal length)
- Yongnuo RF603 flash triggers
- Yongnuo YN 460-II flash
- Impact flash diffuser (compression fit with white fabric on 3 sides and one side that has a silver reflector)
This was my first time attempting complete manual control with manual flash in a hallway cosplay setting (eg. taking photos of cosplayers I randomly meet). The biggest issue was managing necessary changes for almost every single photo I took. Although, some areas like the dealers room and gaming room were evenly lit and allowed me to set the camera once while I was in there.
This was also my first time using the D7000 camera body in more than a casual way. I had practiced taking photos of cats and trees/bushes outside a number of times to try and get a feel for the camera. It’s a decent way of building muscle memory for button placements and I think it paid off.
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| The dealers room had bright and even lighting. |
How I setup and used the camera:
U1 custom setting mode:
Full manual control (set to ISO 100, f2.8, 1/180th, matrix metering, exposure compensation to -1, raw+jpeg, locked center point AF)
U2 custom setting mode:
Aperture priority (set to ISO Auto, f2.5, -0.7 exposure compensation, raw+jpeg, locked center point AF, matrix metering, raw+jpeg)
The U1 setting was for when I used the wireless flash. The U2 setting was for general natural light photography. Each block of setting is a general starting point where I tweak it as needed to get what I’m looking for in a given location. The -1 EV compensation for U1 is used so that I can more easily see the exact exposure. With flash I’m always underexposing, so that -1 gets around the + or – 2 stops the meter shows.
For example, if I see the meter shows the exposure at 0, that means it is actually -1 EV. I even prefer to have some negative exposure compensation with aperture priority (U2) because saving highlights is more important than spending a few minutes lightning up RAW files in post processing.
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| Ambient light and flash from the upper left (hand held). |
Even with a diffuser on the YN460-II most of the time, the flash was pretty strong at its lowest setting. I had to be mindful of not pushing too much light at a subject. Most often I held the flash in my left hand and the camera in my right. This allows for around 2 feet of distance between the two. Though I lose the abilities of TTL, this setup is cheap and gives more natural lighting angles.
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| Hand held flash from the right. Thankfully my arms are long! |
The flash and two RF triggers could cost as little as $70 online, which is a lot less than even the cheapest TTL/HSS capable 3rd party flash. Although I might pick up a TTL flash eventually, this worked well enough that I feel confident using it again in the future. My only gripe is it takes more time and a bit more prone to human error.
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| Impromptu hallway cosplay photos are still manageable in full manual + wireless flash. |
One nice thing about this camera over others I have used in the past is that the D7000 has dual SD card slots. It allows me to do various things for the purpose of backup or splitting photos and videos up. I decided to shoot in RAW + JPEG, but have the JPEGs pushed to the second card. This keeps my main card free of the JPEG files I’ll probably never use, but more importantly allows me to do image backup on the fly.
The camera didn’t feel slow or hold me up at all, so I think this will be something I do most of the time for conventions. Having memory cards go bad isn’t unheard of. Having a medium or full sized JPEG backup is a great space efficient way to cover that one issue. If a card holding the RAWs went bad, I’d still be able to manage with a JPEG just fine. Losing an entire day or half-day worth of effort would not be fun…
Once again mixed lighting and white balance were issues. I had my rogue flash gels with me, but I didn’t use them. Mostly because the diffuser I have doesn’t really work with the gels because both make a compression fit on the flash. This will be something I work on.
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| (original, first edit, second edit) Mixed light shows blue cast to subject and yellow to ambient. |
The photo above demonstrates the issues with mixed lighting. The ambient light had a strong orange cast to it, and of course the flash light is naturally blue to resemble sun light. When I first tried editing the photo to make the background less orange, it results in a blue subject. Had I placed a CTO gel on the flash, I would have most likely made the light hitting the subject closer in color to ambient. Just throwing on a gel isn’t a simple fix.
Making that change of flash color can cause more problems sometimes. I think in the future I will try my weakest CTO (color temperature orange) gel to see if that provides just enough color change to make the overall photo more equalized in most situations. Using a strong gel will just cause more problems than it is worth. I want a minimal but visible change.
That’s it for Kollision con photo talk. It was a fun convention and a good learning experience.
As you would probably expect, I spent most of my time doing cosplay photography, but I did attend a few panels, most of the Masquerade, walked in on a concert or two for a few songs, and played a some video games.
Props go out to Charles, Kersten, and their crew for hosting the "Posing tips for the Cosplayer" and "Photography advice for the cosplay photographer" panels. They did a good job touching on specific details and not just a slideshow of their past work like other panels I've seen over the years. I found both of them informative.
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| Knowing is half the battle. Attend panels. |
I stopped by both The Pillowcases and V is for Villains concerts for a song or two, though my ability and desire to handle loud music has gone down a bit over the last number of conventions. Probably from the times I've been up close to powerful stage speakers as I'm taking photos. Maybe the next time I'm asked to do that, I'll bring a set of earplugs. I didn't even bother taking photos, because of the potential hassles that come with photographing concerts with no press/media badge. I don't think I know anyone running this convention, so it wasn't worth the trouble.
It had been a long while since I utilized the game room at a convention. In the case of Kollision Con, It wasn't too busy, so at one point, Erik of CVFTA and I spent some quality time dispatching zombies on the PS3. I also tried out the Wii U on Sunday for a few moments. The controller is novel and has functional benefits, but it won't shake my old school love for the NES and SNES controllers.
The convention, in general, seemed extremely laid back. Besides having badges checked at a few of the main events and to borrow a game controller, there wasn't much else people attending had to deal with in the form of security. I much prefer it this way. Of the few things I did attend, they were on time and well executed.
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| Samurai Dan doing what he does best. |
There were quite a few cosplayers around, especially considering the general size of the convention. While many of the cosplayers were focused on the given trending costumes of the day like "Homestuck," there were quite a few more elaborate, impressive, and unique cosplays around.
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| A friend from my hometown with his elaborate costume. |
I did some hallway photography, but as you can tell from my photo sets, a lot of the time was spent with people I already know or my photographer and cosplayer friends know. I'm not sure what to say about that except it is easier to take photos with someone you know because there isn't as much initial effort involved in getting things setup. It's actually pretty fun to get more into the details of extended photo sessions, because there is room to expand on lighting and framing technique with more time.
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| A photo taken between taking photos. |
I was even able to get a few choice photographing moments outside with one cosplayer on Sunday. The weather was quite warm for this time of the year, and I'm glad it worked out. Using completely manual settings on the camera with a manual flash presents special challenges outside. I won't go into details here (check my related article on photographybanzai.com for details once that is available), but I'll say it worked out well without too much hassle.
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| I'm glad the weather allow for some shooting outside! |
One thing I noticed was that most of the photographers had a lot of camaraderie and teamwork at Kollision. Some of us helped each other with aspects like holding lights or if we needed something in general. We also took turns with cosplayers at times when it was more difficult to find someone to work with. Overall, it was a great demonstration of how Midwest cosplay photographers can work. I don't really know what other areas of the country are like, but I'll try to find out in the future.
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| Three photographers, one lighting assistant, and one cosplayer working together. |
All things were not perfect. There was one unusual fellow bothering women by getting a bit too friendly and giving them autographed self-portraits of himself in drag. Also, a new friend of mine had an incoherent drunk quiz her about the convention scene among other things. I seem to remember hearing his statement about having a beer bottle collection at one point, which seems fitting.
The person wasn't part of the convention, but a guest of the resort for holiday most likely. I guess bothering young women was on his drunken vacation to-do list. So that's about it for my report of Kollsion Con 2012. I'll leave you with the photo below for my rating of the convention.
Maybe I'll see you next year. My regards to Erik of CVFTA for the epic bi-level room at Pheasant Run Resort.