My SDCC 08 pics

[lcummins]

wow thats surprising since his he has such long horns i expected him to be bigger

That 12 to 13 inches would be just his head without the horns! Overall, it is pretty large!

 

[Jen]

Beautiful pics! Thanks for sharing them!

 

[gabberjawa]

Can you share your technique for taking these shots, you get the best lighting quality of any con shots I've ever seen and I'm curious as to what your trick is for not having to use ugly flash and such, like light source, F stop, shutter speed, stuff like that, if you don't mind sharing and can remember or find out of course.

Much appreciated, all of your help, especially those Obi-Wan images, keep up the good work.

My pleasure, MF.

I don't know if it's hard to tell for someone who might not have attended SDCC, but it's very dark in there, photographically speaking. You can combat this a number of ways, each with its own drawbacks. Larger f-stops are helpful if you want to go natural light, but if you don't nail the focus, you're outta luck. Of course you'll always want to maintain a fast enough shutter speed which is difficult to do.

Most people combat the problem with flash, which has to contend with the glass/plastic covers. The quality of light is another matter, but I have seen some good results going this route.

I went with a combination this year-- the Diablo 3 pic I posted right there used flash. It's very useful, almost necessary in some situations, I should've used it in more than a few instances (Indy PF, hat casted major shadows) but I was too lazy to bust it out most of the time. I have some different tricks I plan to try next year though.

Depending on the level of glare/reflection, light levels, shadow, how many people are bumping into you to grab that free bookmark or pin, what works best will vary.

It's a very, very, distracting, hectic, and challenging situation to photograph but it's kinda fun too.

 

[MaulFan]

Well it paid off. Between what is clearly a nice camera, and your technique, you capture the most faithful images of these things out of anyone I see post images, they're of a quality as if you were home and able to just do what you have to for the shot, which is very helpful because, while it's nice getting images at all, sometimes you find out later what you thought you saw isn't really how it appears, but your images are faithful and best I can guess, very true representations of detail and color on the pieces and I judge most items by your photos as to how what I will get or am ordering looks. Thanks for the info and all your hard work. I hope to get out to the Con next year and your tips will certainly help. I have a shoe mount flash with a 3' extension cable for my camera, so I'm hoping that'll help achieve the best shots that can be obtained under conditions.

 

[The Josh]

Nice shots Chuck.