Cosplay competition is always a major event at any convention. Pretty much most of the attendees flock to the main stage in hopes to get a good spot, and I was the same. Thankfully I secured a spot right at the front, but alas I was pinned to the floor and my legs started to die at that point. One of these days I’ll get a front row seat and no more kneeling on the hard floor! Anyway onwards to the cosplay competition photos.
The last time I took cosplay competition photos at SMASH! 2007, I was up on the 2nd floor which was a pretty silly decision given that I didn’t have a very good telephotic lens for it. So this time I was at the front but DAMN that stage was high. But the good thing about the setup was the lights above the stage. In some cases it provided nice lighting and also gives that star on stage look. Well that depends on the angle. I was hoping to not use the flash this time but the venue was a lot more darker than I had anticipated. Still, thank god for the 24-105mm f/4L lens, this lens is bloody brilliant.
That pretty much concludes Day 1 of SMASH!. It’s actually kind of amusing as the amount of entries for the competition didn’t seem all that much. I thought there was more.I guess the other reason is that there weren’t too many skits either, which I always see it as a good thing. Nothing worse than sitting through a skit where it’s longer than 2 minutes and can barely hear the audio. As for the winners, I don’t know who won the competition categories since I never stay to find out.
Just like Supanova a few weeks ago, I’m still finding so many limitations using the Canon 400D. I wish I could take photos on a higher ISO than 400 and have the body not have that delay of taking photos. The 24-105mm lens focuses faster than the camera body taking a picture, so alas I miss some great moments. Lets hope next year I’ll have a better camera.
Check out other coverage of SMASH!:
- Hunting the Elusive (Day 1, Day 2)
- The Dis-Jointedzone
- Bubby’s SmugMug (Day 1, Day 2)
- Technical Solitude
- SMASH! Forums Photo Thread
- The Tsundere
what was Zac Efron stand doing in there??
good coverage!!
phossil’s last blog post..Expomueble 2009
That skit with Zac Efron was hilarious.
Considering I only caught half of the event (I was in the Madman Theatre room taking a nap during the last half) I guess I didn’t miss too much after all.
Optic’s last blog post..SMASH! 09: Loot
I did enjoy the Zac Efron skit. Laughed rather hard.
On the photos - Usually you should be able to shoot at ISO800 and do Noise reduction in Lightroom. I ended up doing most of that day’s shooting at 1200 or 1600, which there is abit of grain, but doing abit of noise reduction afterwords usually fixes anything blatantly visible.
Reijin’s last blog post..New Layout!
phossil: The Zac Efron stand was there to be destroyed!
Optic: Conventions always takes it out on people.
Reijin: With the 400D, I prefer to shoot at ISO400 as the highest. ISO800 just proves to be way too grainy and you can only do so much noise reduction in the post-processing stages.
:O
I was there that day too! I probably saw you somewhere in the crowd! (Even though I have no idea what you look like
)
Adun: Fair enough! Older DSLR’s hate higher ISO settings.
I somehow made it through the entire event minus 3 pictures without a flash, haha.
Love the pictures though!
Reijin’s last blog post..New Layout!