NorCal Spring 2011 Cosplay Gathering

05 18 2011

This year’s NorCal Spring Cosplay gathering, organized by Bekalou and me, was a lot of fun. We decided to hold this year’s gathering at Kelley Park in San Jose. Previous Spring gatherings were held at Hakone Gardens, but Hakone’s restrictions and fees were a concern. Even more importantly, Hakone was starting to feel cramped given the number of people who were attending. Also, the previous two Summer gatherings at Kelley Park convinced us that Kelley Park is better when it’s cooler, and that we should find a new, less hot location for this year’s Summer gathering.

My first photography decision for this gathering was to rent the Canon 200mm f/2 lens. This is one of Canon’s best lenses; it’s very sharp and has great bokeh. Its only downsides are its weight and its price. (It’s also conspicuous as heck, which doesn’t matter for gatherings.) For lighting, I brought along two AlienBee lights with softboxes.  To trigger & control them, I used my PocketWizards with the AC9 AlienBee adapter and the AC3 controller.

It was windy in the morning, so I shot with natural light for the first few hours. The 200/f2 lens was a dream, and let me get some really great shots:

After a while, the wind started to die down, and I found some volunteers to hold to light stands in case an unexpected wind gust came along. I set up my lights, and with my volunteers’ help, I started using the lights for my shots:

The PocketWizard AC3 controller made shooting with the AlienBees a breeze. It gave me three dedicated dials for controlling the power of my lights. No more digging into the menus or walking up to the lights to make adjustments! This was especially convenient with the 200/f2, which, because of its long focal length, required me to stand fairly far away to get full body shots. I can not imagine shooting the ABs without the AC3 any more.

Thank you to everyone who came and made this gathering a success, with a special thanks to everyone who posed for photos or helped me with my lighting gear! Also, an extra-giant thanks to Bekalou for organizing this with me! I look forward to seeing everyone at the NorCal Summer Gathering at our new location!

More of my photos from this gathering are on my photo site at http://l.oscarc.net/jBKCLz.

Other photos from the gathering:

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Categories : Anime, Photos