A video of the Fanime panel “Cosplayers and Photographers Working Together” is up on YouTube courtesy of James Patterson. Comments and feedback are welcome and appreciated!

Cosplay Photos – Basics
Friday at 7pm

Cosplay photo posters will be used to demonstrate these techniques in practice.

Cosplayers & Photographers
Saturday at 10am

Working together, cosplayers and photographers can create amazing photos! Join our panel with Bekalou, Etaru, Foxberry , OscarC, & Yukari Kaiba as we discuss setting up a shoot, common misunderstandings, dos and don’ts during a shoot, model releases & legal issues, and post-shoot etiquette.

The panelists will discuss cosplay photography and photo shoots from both the cosplayer and photographer points of view, with an emphasis on areas where there’s confusion, or where cosplayer/photographer issues often occur. We will discuss the end-to-end process of a photoshoot, from finding a photographer or cosplayer, to tips during shooting, and dealing with post-shoot issues like copyright. The panel will consist of well-known and experienced photographers and cosplayers who will be able use their first-hand experiences to discuss the various issues that come up.

My latest article for Cosplay Blog With a Brain, “Why Hallway Shooting?”, is now up! In it, I discuss why I think practice doing hallway cosplay shooting is important for every cosplay photographer.

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, “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.