My latest article for Cosplay Blog With a Brain, “Before You Shoot”, is now up! In it, I discuss pre-shoot planning.

I am interested in hearing people’s comments and feedback. Please post them here or on the original post.

My latest article for Cosplay Blog With a Brain, “Field-of-View”, is now up at http://cosplaybrain.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/field-of-view/.

I am interested in hearing people’s comments and feedback. Please post them here or on the original post.

My latest article for Cosplay Blog With a Brain, “Where Can I Shoot Cosplay? (part 3): Non-Convention Shoots”, is now up at http://cosplaybrain.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/better-cosplay-photos-where-can-i-shoot-cosplay-3/

I am interested in hearing people’s comments and feedback. Please post them here or on the original post.

My latest article for Cosplay Blog With a Brain, “Where Can I Shoot Cosplay? (part 2): Cosplay Gatherings”, is now up at http://cosplaybrain.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/better-cosplay-photos-where-can-i-shoot-2/.

I am interested in hearing people’s comments and feedback! Please post them here or on the original post.

My latest article for Cosplay Blog With a Brain, “Where Can I Shoot Cosplay? (part 1)”, is now up at: http://l.oscarc.net/wuK2hl

I am interested in hearing people’s comments and feedback. Please post them here or on the original post.

My latest post for “Cosplay Blog with a Brain” is up: Better Cosplay Photos: Shoot RAW.

I frequently get asked “What laptop should I buy?” Everyone’s needs and budgets are different, so there’s no one correct answer for everyone, but I wanted to walk through my thought process in deciding my most recent laptop purchase.

The hard disk in my wife Caroline’s laptop died yesterday. It was an 8-year-old hand-me-down laptop (Dell Latitude D800), so instead of replacing the hard drive, we decided to buy her a new one.

Our requirements:

• It has to have a 4 year life as a primary laptop. (In other words, it should be able to handle everything we throw at it for at least 4 years.) After that, we’ll continue to use it, but it may not be able to handle high-end games and applications.
• 15″ screen, because a 17″ screen is too heavy and too hard for her to carry on an airplane, and a 14″ screen is too small.
• It has to be able to handle the games that Caroline plays.
• Total price must be under $2500.

What we chose:

• Dell Latitude E6520, since it will work with our existing Dell E-series docking station, and because we’ve had good luck with Dell’s Latitude line.
• Quad-core i7 processor. Nothing else is going to have the 4 year life we want.
• 8GB RAM. Unless you have an extremely tight budget, there’s no point in getting any less.
• nVidia NVS 4200M discrete graphics card. Required for Caroline’s gaming.
• 128GB SSD. The performance difference between an SSD and a regular HDD for the boot drive is tremendous. If you want a fast computer, an SSD is a must.
• Bluetooth module. This lets her hook up an external keyboard, mouse, headphones, etc, without cables or a proprietary dongle.
• The E6520 has an integrated webcam and mike.
• High-end integrated WiFi card. Since the laptop will be used in WiFi mode most of the time, having the strongest possible WiFi connection is a must.
• 9-cell battery (the standard is 6 cell). The quad-core processor really needs this for halfway-decent battery life.
• Standard DVD burner. This is becoming increasingly unnecessary; I wouldn’t be surprised if this was my last laptop purchase with an optical drive.
• Windows 7 Ultimate with recovery media. Recovery media is important if your disk dies and you need to reinstall, or if you decide to replace the internal drive yourself.
• MS Office Starter 2010. Caroline doesn’t need anything other than basic Word and Excel.
• 3 year on-site service. We didn’t get any of the add-on “advanced” services, since I can do all my own software support and troubleshooting. We did get the accidental damage add-on, since we have two kids and will be traveling a lot. Also, the accidental damage add-on makes it harder for them to refuse warranty service on some random pretense.

Other people have different requirements and different budgets, so please don’t treat this as a recommendation of what anyone else should buy. However, it is a good example of how I go through the process of deciding what to buy, and hopefully will help other people decide what’s right for them.

I’ve started writing a recurring column for Cosplay Blog With a Brain titled “Better Cosplay Photos”. My first article, “Know Your Camera!”, is now up at http://cosplaybrain.wordpress.com/2012/02/09/know-your-camera/.

I am interested in hearing people’s comments and feedback! Please post them here or on the original post.

On the way back from Nancy’s maternity shoot in Sacrameno (see earlier post), my assistant Bekalou and I stopped by Vacaville to do a DC Superheroes shoot with Carladawn as Black Canary, Winken Goodfellow as Green Arrow, and Jessica as Supergirl.

After replacing a burned-out headlight, Bekalou and I made the short drive to Vacaville. After a little bit of driving around, we found Andrews Park, parked, and met up with Carladawn, Winkin, and Jessica. Andrews Park is a very pretty medium-sized park in downtown Vacaville; it has a wide variety of backgrounds, making it an excellent location for this superhero shoot.

Like with Nancy’s shoot, I used my Canon 5D Mark II camera body, Canon EF 135 f/2L lens, a Canon 580 EX II flash, and a reflector. Unlike Nancy’s shoot, though, I used a Lastolite Ezybox Hotshoe softbox (held by bekalou) for many of the flash-lit shots. Also, for the shots after dark, I switched to the Canon EF 24-105 f/4L lens, and used a second handheld Canon 580 EX II with a Lastolite Big Bounce diffuser to create multiple light sources.

Group shoots are always fun because characters are more interesting when they’re interacting. Also, cosplayers get breaks while someone else is posing, giving them time to come up with more ideas for poses and shots. In this case, not only were all thre cosplays from the same universe, two of the characters (Canary and Arrow) have a complex personal relationship. This provided lots of fodder when brainstorming poses. In addition, all three cosplayers patiently (even when freezing their butts off in skimpy costumes) worked with Bekalou and I to get each shot set up perfectly. (Incidentally, this type of careful set up is next to impossible at convention shoots, which is why I prefer non-convention shoots.)

The downside of having such an amazing group of cosplayers at such a pretty location, though, is that it makes for a very long shoot. We met up around 1:30pm, and were shooting by 1:45pm. We were starting to wrap up around 4:15pm when Jessica mentioned that she had ridden to the shoot with her boyfriend on a motorcycle. After a brief round of “Wow that would be great for photos! Why didn’t you mention this before?”, we shot Supergirl, then Canary, and then Supergirl again on the motorcycle. This took us all the way through sunset around 4:45pm.

At that point, Jessica and her boyfriend had to leave, but the rest of us moved to an alley in downtown Vacaville and took some more urban-looking shots, including a very amazing “Alley Fight” set. We finally wrapped around 5:30pm, having shot for almost 4 hours straight.

The photos from this shoot are now posted on my site at http://l.oscarc.net/wv9OD6. Here are a few of my favorites:

You can view more photos from this shoot on my site at http://l.oscarc.net/wv9OD6.

In early December, I had the privilege of doing a maternity shoot with Nancy at Land Park in Sacramento. I’d shot with Nancy before at Fanime and DragonCon, and was very excited to work with her again. I was also going to meet and shoot Nancy’s husband Andrew for the first time.

Because the shoot location was 3 hours away, my lighting assistant Bekalou and I hit the road early that morning. Bekalou has been my lighting assistant at many shoots over the last two years, and has gotten quite adept at translating my grunts and cryptic statements into meaningful requests. She’s a great lighting assistant and I really enjoy working with her. (She’s also a top-notch cosplayer — check out her site!)

Traffic was lighter than expected, so we had plenty of time to grab lunch and relax before the scheduled 1pm start. Fortunately, the rain that had been forecast earlier in the week never materialized; the day was clear, with few clouds in the sky. It was also a bit chilly (in the 50s) and windy, but that isn’t unexpected for early December. Shooting in bright sunlight isn’t ideal, but in December it’s a lot less harsh than, say, July. We also tried to stay in the shade until about 3pm, when the sun was lower and the light more diffuse.

For this shoot, I brought my Canon 5D Mark II camera body, Canon EF 135 f/2L lens, and a Canon 580 EX II flash for fill. I purchased the 135 f/2L lens at a Black Friday sale a week before the shoot, and after taking a few test shots, was very eager to try it out “for real”. It proved to be the perfect lens for this shoot, letting me pick up more of the scenery than the 200 f/2L, while blurring the background better than any zoom lens could. Also, for some shots Bekalou held a reflector for fill. I brought some other lenses and gear along for backup, but I didn’t end up needing any of it.

The shoot itself was tremendous fun. Nancy was as wonderful to work with as I remembered, and Andrew was great too! For someone 9 months pregnant, I was amazed how well Nancy handled a 2 hour shoot that involved walking around a large park. Bekalou did an excellent job handling the gear, allowing me to focus on the shoot itself. We wandered around the park, shooting in various locations with various poses. Nancy and Andrew’s love for each other shined through clearly throughout the shoot; the photos of them as a couple made me feel like I was doing an engagement shoot. Despite some wind-related challenges, we got many excellent shots before wrapping at 4pm.

When looking at the shoot results, I was surprised to discover that in only two hours, I’d shot 661 frames. Part of the reason for the high count was because at f/2, perfect focus is absolutely critical; missing focus by an inch can be catastrophic. I shot more then I normally would to ensure that one misfocused shot wouldn’t cause me to lose a nice pose. Also, we wanted to take advantage of the many beautiful shoot locations at Land Park. The biggest reason for the high count, though, was that Nancy and Andrew were such great models, with lots of ideas for poses, and a willingness to try my and Bekalou’s suggestions.

With help from Bekalou and my wife Caroline, I was able to bring the photo count down to 121. After my usual processing in Lightroom and Photoshop, I posted them to my site at http://l.oscarc.net/zi2nkI.

A few of my favorites are below:

You can view the rest on my site at http://l.oscarc.net/zi2nkI.