This was my second photoshoot after I bought my SB900 and my umbrella stand. It was my first shoot using the new bought pop-up flash diffuser which I bought last week at DCIM which was also the last one because I left it somewhere at the location and only realized it back after the entrance was closed and I had no access back to the shooting location.

Here I would like to thank Xajin for his help to lead me and show me around HELP (although I didn’t use it but I look forward to use it in the long run). Whole bunch of thanks shall go to my good friend Yafex, not only for lending us the weapons for this shoot but also to help being an assistant to hold the umbrella stand all through the nearly 4 hour session and also be the model and stunt man for all the test shots. And thank you for Akiko herself for joining my session. It was a precious learning experience for me and hope we can do more sessions in the future.

I found Akiko blog a few years back and has been following it for quite a while. I met her a few times before at conventions ( I still can remember her epic bunny haruhi appearence in Daicon which attracted the whole crowd of photographers at the side of the stage) and also did group cosplay shoot togather with her at MMU when she did Black Rock Shooter which you can check her photos on this gallery on Razriq flickr.

The location took place in HELP college in Damansara ( technically it was actually underneath it). The basement car park got an abandon section for unknown reason but it was dark and dirty with lots of construction debris and textured concrete/brick wall which is hazardous to health but good for a photo location of character from a game like Resident Evil.

I saw her Jill cosplay from a Resident Evil cosplay gallery on KC Lee’s facebook and ping her on MSN asking if she want to do a short solo session in a dark and dirty place so I can play with my SB900. She agreed staightaway and we set a date which was yesterday. She was the one proposing the location and this linked me with Xajin, a cosplayer which is also a student of HELP college. Xajin wanted to test their DRRR costumes and also needs someone to shoot them that lead yesterday session a double shoot of Jill and also pair of Shizuo and Izaya from anime DRRR.

So going to the technical part, the plan for this shoot was to lit the subject and make the light fall off so the already creepy and dirty surrounding will look a bit dark. I also wanted to use the textures and debris on the floor to create the abandoned building atmosphere that fits a zombie game like Resident Evil. All the photos are lit by SB900 shooting trough a medium size umbrella. I put warm gel on it and also put on the diffuser dome and also set the light mode to even. I don’t know to use manual so I depend of camera TTL and to catch up with all the diffusion I gave to the speedlight most of the time I dial the EV on the flash to +1.0.

Everything was shot at ISO800 and f4.0. This was my biggest mistake. My brain did not work that day haha… (it was raining in the morning and my brain was damp and wet XD). I was too focused on my lighting assignment for that session I forgot about the basic of exposure.　I was dialing my camera EV to -3.0 but everything was still too bright lol. There was no need to use big aperture here, blurring background is not a necessity so I should have choose to shoot it at minimum ISO and bring down the aperture to smaller aperture . Hard lesson learned, will try again next time, sigh. But yeah, the photos came out quite okay only that the EXIF will look odd and people who read those informations might be wondering what this guy was trying to do.

I spend almost 2 hours and managed to complete about only 4 to 5 poses, spending 15 to 20 frames for each. Yes very inefficient  indeed but since I don’t know what kind of shadow I wanted to define Jill’s character I tested every possible lighting position I can think of, moving my only light source left, right, up and down so I can choose them later on post processing. I finally bought a reflector on that morning and tried to fill the shadow with it, but I realized on dark environment like this, passive fill light does not do the job well. I guess I need to search for a Nikon sidekick who at least have an SB600 so we can TTL with two speedlight  on my future photoshoot.

Composition turned out to be very weak also ( blame the morning rain again XD). My angle made Jill looks skinny and it did not fit the character very well. I did research after the shoot and the solution to that is to try angle the subject so it will hide where the bones appear the most with other body parts like arms or prop. Another hard lesson learned and I need to take note of this and research more on this area.

But as in overall output of the session, I was kinda delighted with the outcome.

I like Akiko expression and mood and the skin color looks good also wall and floor texture did stand out. It really made a different from all my other photos I took since Ibought this D90. As every book in photography will say, lighting is the most basic and important element of a photo. The source, quantity, quality and direction of light will define the photo. I will process DRRR raws a bit later and will post it next weekend so stay tune!

Please check my flash gallery at http://kusakabemisao.com/p3/Jill/

Also set for this photos is on my flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kusakabemisao/sets/72157623993418827/

Some comments from my photographers friends are that the photos are obviously underexposed and also the poses were a bit redundant. These are the stuff I need to practice more so if any of you reading this post is a cosplayer and need a camera guy to shoot you at a dark location as this one, please contact me because I want to do a few more photoshoot at this same location for practise purpose. Just comment on this post or send me email at admin@kusakabemisao.com if you are interested.

On Saturday after attending some relative wedding I rushed to Paviliion KL to vote for cheesie. I have been following her blog and twitter for sometime already and when I know she needs vote to win some blogathon thing, I decide to go there and vote as I am going Berjaya Times Square anyway for Anime Hanabi Festival there.

The event was called Live Mannequin blogathon and organized by intel,  lenovo and TANGS.

The bloggers inside glass, cheesie is appealing for vote LOL.

Vote for cheesie!

Pic with cheesie!

The blogathon has run one and half day but she still looks very genki haha…

Just right after I casted my vote suddenly cheesie went outside the glass for her tasks so I took the chance to see her closer XD. She was like interviewing two lengzai and asking them to draw something.

Cheesie with her trademark G10!

When she finished her task I went to her just to say hi, but she suddenly asked me to help for her task also which got me ended up being cheesed inside her blog XD

You can see my drawing and my pics on her post http://cheeserland.com/2008/11/fashion-technology/

Sorry for the lame blog promotion LOL i wasn`t thinking when I signed that drawing XD

生チーズ！

After finished with cheesie, rushed to Berjaya Times Square, with a car LOL. It was raining and traffic was bad took me like forever just to move from Pavilion to Berjaya Times Square.

When I arrived there, the party ended already, nyoron…

Luckily got this Luka cosplayer wandering around, so at least I got something from day one!

Pretty well done for a first timer.

I met some cosplayers I know like Mieko+Gems but didn`t got chance to photo them. Oh and I met Kei also, I saw her mobile blog update that she`s wearing meido LOL

Pic with nekomimi meido Kei XD For no reason we did gattai pose LOL

I got nothing to do so I took the prize picture!

I want these bags but lazy to sing LOL

Then I saw chikoness`s index. OMG so cute LOL (Kazui`s Yowane Haku beside her)

And that`s all I got from day one LOL

Rushed to Myclamyra`s house for jamming session. Guitar is too common nowadays so we choose violin because more GAR!

It was maskawaih violin actually.

Got to try an Ibanez with tremolo. Very comfy and easy to play. I want one of these when I am rich haha…

Linkin also got post on this. Head to his blog here.

After finish singing carpenter`s “Top of the world” repeatedly for like 20 times, we decided it was time to go home.

Not for me though I went to Ultimaweapon`s house just to watch biri biri and setokai LOL

The next day woke up and continue watching kimi ni todoke and nakajima ai/mayn singing macross songs in budokan.

This is hikki`s view of the bright sky outside! Indoor ROCKS!

After lagging with some rounds of guitar hero and listening to Hachikuji Mayoi and Senjogahara Hitagi commentary, I finally moved out back to Berjaya Times Square for Anime Hanabi Festival day two.

Something you do when you got a wide lens – camwhoring  in the lift ! XD

When I arrived at the event I saw an angel playing computer game!

Linkin already helped me register for Weiss Schwarz competition and here is Elfenrir studying my deck.

The two taukehs of LittleAkiba at their booth.

TheFigureMall small figure exhibition.

The only cosplayer I shot on day two! I was soo busy with the weiss Schwarz competition I wasn`t taking anything nyoron…

Oh but got Beatbox here camwhoring to my D90 LOL

And that was my last shot of day two. The reason I got almost no photo at all on day two was because the Weiss Schwarz competition took almost the whole day LOL. It was my first time joining so I wasn`t expecting it will take that long. I tried to play as fast as I can in hope it will finish early to give me some time to shoot the cosplayers but I end up winning most of the matches and entered the finals LOLOL

The final match was very tight, both of us at Level 3 with only a few clocks left. It was my turn and my last attack got cancelled by his last card!

Then it was his turn.

First attack  - 3 damages.  Leaving me only two clocks left before end of game.

His second attack – 5 damages but got cancelled.

His last attack! 3 damages!!! and my 3rd card was a climax!!! LOLOL

So it was my turn again I just suicide attack with everything on my front row and bring up my support card to the front line and won the competition on my second attack!  XD

The tournament was really fun and most of the players are very friendly. I made a few mistakes during the matches but they didn`t mind and let me continue the game. I think fighting Alex`s Canaan was tough and Yuki was like helping me to arrange my front row cards to fight againts him because he`s also familiar with Lucky Star XD

After finishing my final, went to Food Court with myclamyra and had a good chat with him. We were chatting until I forgot about the Prize Giving ceremony LOL

Too bad cannot take prize on stage my first competition won nyoron…

At least I got 4 booster packs for free XD

No gold/silver bags, no SR or RR card found inside the four packs haha…

Just some addition to the two eventful days, I went to Lowyat to put Mayoi skin on my new laptop.

Here how it turned out LOL

Too long post already. I end it up here. Thanks for reading again. Please comment if you like the contents I will appreciate it!

It was my second time doing a photoshoot with Mieko also the photographers line up was the same as previous Vampire Knight session. This time with less people the photographers should have more flexibility to direct the shoot and focus on the lighting, posing and framing.

Mieko as always were doing great. She got lots of pose and can response precisely to the photographers. I let Razriq and Linkin to do all the positioning and posing. The location was inside Melaka Mall. It got a lot of glass wall and decently lit shaded area. It was around 11 and the sky was bright outside and probably the reason Amir and Linkin tend to position her into high key position. Backlit is something I don`t prefer because it force me to use lower aperture which will be resulting mediocre sharpness using my lens and less dramatic picture. Another reason I tend to skip bright background is my internal flash looks so ugly when used on people so filling the missing f stops will result artificial look which will look more artificial when I try to fix it with Lightroom.

I put myself to challenge more on creating contrast headshots with biggest aperture on my lens which I can say what my gears is good at. Headshots cannot include much rather than the face and minimal background so lighting, mood and face expression are the major factors to create good photos. Mieko has tried her best and I can say we got a lot Luka version this time but still maintaining her cool and mature characteristic.

I positioned Mieko so she was facing the big glass wall which is my only main light. I wish I got a diffused SB-900 countering the shadows making them softer and more even but I think I have managed to pull some decent ones from this tehnique. If i wanted to go a step further I might ask Mieko to position herself nearer or farther the wall but it would be too troublesome for her also for me so I sorta ignore that thought and continued shooting at the same spot :P

Again I got a lot of problem during post processing. I still haven`t finish reading my portrait handbook yet and tend to get lost when it came to post-processing. I was mixing Auto mode and aperture priority mode and I got various kind of exposure along the shoot resulting the output was not very constant. I might as well just upload the photos straight from RAW instead of having a mix up gallery. But yeah, still a lot more to learn and need to make room for improvement rather than bitching on this blog how amateurish my work is haha…

Anyway thanks if you read this far and here`s some photos for you.
More Mieko cosplay photos on her deviant-art.
Also please visit Razriq`s post and Linkin`s post for more Luka pictures.

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