Special DC Cosplay Photoshoot Meet Up

On October 5^th, I attended the D.C. Cosplay Photo Shoots’ special subscriber meet-up held at 3MI Studios in West Virginia.  The studio was a decent size with several different sets, from a cyclorama wall, a rain room (everyone’s favorite), a barn set, decorative walls, and bedroom sets.  It was a good size for the number of people that attended, and we didn’t encroach on each other while shooting.

For this session I used:

• Canon R6
• 2 Speed light
• Trigger
• 1 Light stands
• 24 - 105mm lens
• Gels
• Onsight RGB panels (mostly for rain room)

Camera Settings:

Because the location is a professional studio with sets and some continuous lights, my settings varied depending on the set and the light setup.  For everything except the rain room set images, my ISO was at ISO100.  For the rain room images, I bumped my ISO up to ISO 1250 because that set uses continuous LED lights, and I wanted brighter images and to be able to stop the raindrops.  My most common aperture was F5.6, with F9 and F4.0 not being very far behind in usage. My shutter speed varied from 1/13s to 1/250s, with the most common speeds being 1/160s, 1/125s, and surprisingly 1/13s.  Finally, focal lengths ranged from 24mm to 105mm, with the most common being 24mm, followed by 28mm and 105mm. 

The Photos:

Let’s start with my favorite image from the shoot, Lady Cels as Winifred Sanderson from the movie Hocus Pocus.  This image was taken in the rain room set, using three continuous lights, two in the back to light the rain and one in front to light the model.  We went with green and purple because they are common Halloween colors, match the colors in the dress, and we get a nice triadic color scheme if we count the gold and skin tone as orange.  We did have someone working a smoke genie on a stick, who I asked to run the smoke genie on a curve from one hand to the other, so it looks like she is casting a spell.  In post I adjusted the white balance slightly cooler, and bumped up the exposure a ¼ stop.  The most important thing I did was significantly increase the clarity, due to the haze left by smoke from the previous sessions.  Note when using a smoke machine in an enclosed space like a studio, you will probably need to increase clarity slightly, so the image doesn’t look soft.  I also increase the luminance slightly to reduce grain from shooting at ISO 1250.

ISO 1250, Aperture F5.6, Shutter 1/60s, Focal Length 32mm

This next image is of the Scarlet Impaler as Solaire from the video game Dark Souls.  I like this image because it looks like it is out of a movie, right when the main character goes into battle.  We went for a red-orange color for lighting to get a nice glow and give the feel light from a fire or torches.  Then, adding smoke helped make it feel like it was on a battlefield.  In Lightroom I brought the exposure down, as the red-orange lights were a bit bright and this also helped bring down the smokey haze, and then increased the clarity.  I also used the brush tool to add some additional highlights to a portion of the helmet and shield.

ISO 1250, Aperture F4, Shutter 1/100s, Focal Length 105mm

This last image was not taken on the rain room set but in the barn set.  TechnicalcolorMikeB was Boxcar Boots, his hobo clown character.  One would think that for a clown character, the lighting should be bright and high key, but I went in the opposite direction with dark and low key.  I felt going the low-key route would be different and play more off the hobo characteristics of the character.  Even though I went low key the colors still popped.  I feel overall this image has a lot of emotion to it.  In Lightroom, I did basic edits and brought the exposure up just slightly.  I also added two masks, one along the pants to reduce the brightness of the white in the pants, as it could pull your eye away from the face and to the bottom of the frame.  I also added a mask to the shadow side of the face to lighten the shadows a bit, as they were darker than the rest due to the brim of the hat and made the eye in the shadows more visible.

ISO 100, Aperture F5.6, Shutter 1/125s, Focal Length 45mm

Wrap Up:

The DC Cosplay subscriber shoots are always nice because they are a smaller subset of the larger group and can use some different locations because of the smaller size.  I like the studio and will probably book it for some personal work next year as it is just a little over an hour from my house.  The rain room set was good, even if we all had to shoot the same cosplayer at the same time because once the cosplayer is wet, they are wet for the duration.  So, we did all the rain shots at the end of the session.  I think we (the photographers) worked together relatively well together on the rain set, trying not to get into each other's way while shooting and not being overly directive on lighting or smoke use.

You can see all the images from the meet-up here: DC Cosplay at 3MI Studios