Skip to main content

1st Cosplay Meet-up of the Year

On January 11th, I attended the first D.C. Cosplay Photo Shoots’ meet up of the year.  This meet-up was held at Green House Studios in Fort Washington, Maryland.  The studio was ok, but what really put a damper on the whole experience for me was the studio reeked of a very specific plant, if you know what I mean.  

For this session I used:

  • Canon R6
  • 2 Speed light
  • Trigger
  • 1 Light stands
  • Umbrella
  • 24 - 105mm lens
  • Gels

Camera Settings:

Since this was in the studio, my camera setting did not vary too much.  I shot at ISO 200, and my aperture was evenly distributed between F4, F5.6, and F6.3. My shutter speed varied between 1/200s and 1/250s.  While my focal length varied from 24mm to 40mm, with the most common being 24mm.  

The Photos:

Let’s start with this image of Susannahvi24 as Kratos from God of War.  This is an interesting background to use for the character as it has nothing to do with the ancient Greek setting of God of War, but sometimes one must heed the famous words of Tim Gund “make it work”.  So, I arrived at the sitting pose because the cosplayer told me she hasn’t done any images of her sitting yet, so we did some sitting shots.  For this image the light was placed about 15-degrees to my left, without an umbrella.  In post I brought the exposure up about a stop and adjusted the white balance a little towards the cool side as the background lights I felt were too warm.  I increased the clarity and the vibrancy, while using a medium tone curve.  I also applied a blue (shadow) / orange (highlight) color grade to the image, which helped to balance out the shadows and skin tones.  The only other thing I did was clone one of the lights, as one light was out, so I cloned a lit one on top of it to ensure consistency in the background.

Exposure: 1/200s, F5.6, ISO 200, Focal Length: 24mm

This next image is of Twink God Cosplay as Raiden Shogun form Genshin Impact.  This really is a basic portrait shot on black seamless.  The light was placed at about 45-degrees from my right with an umbrella.  In post processing I did very little to the image.  I did the basic adjustments and had to bring up the exposure by a whole stop.  I also added a radial gradient to the face to brighten it slightly.  I then finished the image with a standard vignette.

Exposure: 1/200s, F6.3, ISO 200, Focal Length: 29mm

This last image is of Lokelicious as Alastor from Hazbin Hotel.  I will admit I was struggling a bit with this set up because the black was way more reflective then I thought it was so I kept getting a hotspot on the wall.  I ended up fixing this issue by taking the umbrella off the flash, closing it, and reattaching it as a flag, since I didn’t have any flags with me.  This minimized the spill of light on to the wall.  For this shot I want back to some of my traditional low key styling with a the flash almost 90-degrees to my left, with a narrow spread, lifted high and pointed down.  This lends itself to a detailed lowkey image, which I think works for the character.  In post I adjusted the white balance and brought the exposure up a stop.  I also adjusted the blacks and shadows so one could still see some detail.  I used a medium contrast tone curve on the image and finished the image off with a vignette.

Exposure: 1/250s, F4, ISO 200, Focal Length: 24mm
Wrap Up:

This event was very photographer heavy and cosplayer light; I didn’t shoot with every cosplayer as I was letting the new photographers work.  I will also admit the studio was not inspiring me to create, and I probably should have left the event earlier than I did.   I have looked at the studio previously via PeerSpace and am glad I never decided to book it.  While it may have some of sets, it absolutely reeked of that special plant.  I consciously considered getting back into my car and leaving, and not even taking part in the event, even after driving an hour to get there.  If an event is held at this studio again, I will not attend.  

You can see all the images from the meet-up here: Greenhouse Studio Meet Up

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Pumpkin Barron

On October 12th, I had the pleasure of working with the marvelous SunnyRae .   The general theme for the shoot was pumpkins but with coordination on outfits with SunnyRae theme evolved into official portraits of an 18 th century Pumpkin Baron. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 1 Westcott Strobe 1 rectangular soft box 1 strip box 1 6x6 silver reflector 2 C-stands 1 light stand Boom arm Color checker clamps Sandbags Backdrop stand Rough canvas backdrop Pumpkins Rough canvas drop cloth Flowers Old trunk Books Letters Wooden crate Fake leaves Chair Tri-level plant stand     The set up I wanted to keep this set up a bit rustic yet give the feel of staged aristocratic painting of the time.  I started with a plain rough canvas backdrop then placed an ol...

Night Queen

On September 28th, I did a session with May.   This session’s theme was designed around a Halloween headpiece I made a couple of years ago but never got to shoot.   The vibe of the overall shoot was dark queen. For this session, I used: Photography Equipment Props/Miscellaneous Cannon R6 24-105 mm Lens Transmitter/Trigger 2 Phottix Strobe 2 rectangular soft boxes grids 2 C-stands Sandbags Backdrop stand Fuzzy grey backdrop Spyder Color Checker Card A-clamps 2 trilevel plant stands Fake candles Goblets Fake flowers Black fabric Silver fabric Large Styrofoam block Dowel Rods Skulls Fake moss Dry ice   The set up I tried to keep this setup simple in nature.  I started with the base of a fuzzy grey backdrop to which I added a “throne” made from a large Styrofoam block, some dowel rods, and a piece of black fabric.  To that I added two flower pot hol...

Belle Island with Central VA Cosplayers

On October 19 th I drove down to Richmond, VA to attend a Central VA Cosplay Photoshoot meetup on October 20 th at Belle Island.   I wanted to go to this event because it was in an interesting location, and I wanted to meet some new cosplayers.   For this session I used: Canon R6 2 Speed light Trigger 1 Light stands 24 - 105mm lens Gels Camera Settings: For this shoot, I was transitioning back and forth between being inside an old, dark, abandoned building to bright, sunny woods.  Due to the transitions, my settings varied greatly.  I mostly shot at ISO 100 except for when I accidently bumped the nob to “Auto” and didn’t notice, so I also took shots at ISO 2500, 3200, 4000, and 6400.  The shots at the high ISO actually look fairly decent, and not as grainy as one would expect.  My shutter varied between 1/100s to 1/250s with the most common shutter speed being 1/250s.  My aperture varied between F5 to F11 with the most common ap...