Sidebar: Comments and thoughts?

I'm not a pro photographer. I'm also not a prolific photographer. Many people learn best by experience. I'm sure some of you out there have some tips on how to improve your photography. I'd also like this piece to be an evolving piece, becoming better at helping as time goes on.

With that in mind, if you know some tips that could help beginning photographers make their shots better, either on the shooting side or the digital editing side, or if you just have some comments about some of the ideas I posted here, I would appreciate some e-mail. You can send them to me at jnishi@i360.com, and I may post your hints with a future update.

(Note: I don't write this claiming to be a professional or an expert of any sort. Quite to the contrary, I'm very much an amateur and far from the professional end of the spectrum. However, most of what I say here are tips that many photographers will tell you to do to help your shots and tips that are simply common sense. I recommend that you at least take a look at them and perhaps try a few of them the next time you go picture shooting. You may find yourself improving a lot just by taking a few simple steps.

Also note that I write this with the viewpoint of shooting with a digital camera. Many of the tips do apply to regular film shooters, but much of what I do say is meant with digital cameras in mind. If you shoot with film, however, you should still take those tips that apply to you to heart.)

"Hey, do you remember cosplayer X at convention Y?"

"Of course I do! I have a picture of him."

Cosplay pictures help to keep alive the memory of anime conventions gone by. Of course, the mission of anyone taking a photograph is to capture a moment in time, a memory. With that in mind, I write this to help you budding photographers, as well as the casual camera user, to make your cosplay shots just a bit better.

Many times, photographs just don't come out the way you expect. This problem especially befalls many casual picture takers now, since the rise of relatively inexpensive digital cameras. However, without the benefit of a professional photo lab to process out some defects of pictures, many digital camera users may be frustrated at the somewhat poor quality of some or many of the photographs they take. Film camera users also suffer on occasion with pictures that come out blurry, under/overexposed, or perhaps just badly timed/posed/set up (though they suffer less frequently from color problems, thanks to labs that can handle such problems).

Most of us aren't professional photographers. However, while most of us will accept what comes out of the camera, many still feel that there's always room to improve the pictures for the album.

Well, I'm here to help, even if only a little bit. While perhaps taking perfect photographs is an art, taking decent photographs is far from rocket science. As a matter of fact, learning just a few simple tips can help improve a large number of pictures, whether they are of cosplayers, or of something else.

Part one of this two-part series takes a look at what you can do as an amateur photographer to improve the shot you take. Part two will cover what you can do as an amateur digital touchup artist to adjust the shots you've taken.

Sidebar: Examples

Because it might be a bit hard to understand some of the points I make in the article without visual examples, I will provide here some images to demonstrate the points I've made to the right. It should be noted that the images I am about to show have only been edited for size, color, and contrast, unless explicitly stated otherwise. Also note that you can click the image to view a larger copy in a new window, or click the title to read the relevant paragraph for the image:

Ex. 1: Error in composition of image. Note that even though it's only a small amount, I still accidentally cut off the top part of Kodachi's weapon. However, if I had been more careful, I would have wanted to take the whole weapon, with the end intact.

Ex 2: Proper distance for shooting. I took this shot using no zoom within my camera. The camera was set to the widest angle setting, meaning that I was zoomed out as far as I can go. Note that I've filled Asuka and Shinji within the entire frame. Shooting this close helps prevent blur.

Ex 3: Steadying your shot (steady shot). Note that this shot is a 640x480 crop 1:1 from the camera (1 pixel from here is 1 pixel from the camera - i just pulled a small sample from the camera), instead of a resize. Do you notice that Naru is still relatively sharp, even though I was using zoom and no flash at night to a lit stage? That's because I was steadying the shot using a tripod. If you don't have a tripod, either get in closer and use less zoom, a flash, or something to help steady your shots.

Ex 3a: Steadying your shot (blurred shot). Note that this is again a 640x480 1:1 crop from my camera. Note that Nabeshin is very blurry. This is mainly because I didn't steady my hand in taking the shot (it was a rushed shot - it wasn't because the Nabeshin was moving - he wasn't). However, in this case, I lucked out because the effect sort of works. However, I still would have preferred a steadier shot. The motion blur here was unintentional.

Ex 4: Judicious use of flash. This is a resized crop from my camera. Note that while details in the wing have been washed out a bit because of a flash, the shadows on Akiyume's face that should be there are significantly lightened. Consider the fact that if I hadn't used the flash, the darker part of her face should have been quite a bit closer to the people walking in back. Even though it's light out, and I could get a shot without a flash, the flash helped a lot.

Ex 4a: Judicious use of flash. While it would have required getting in closer, a flash would definitely have helped here. Note the harshness of the shadows on the faces of all 3 cosplayers. A flash would soften those shadows and reveal the details within them.

Ex 4b: Judicious use of flash. In this shooting situation, I was sufficiently close to the stage to use flash (it was borderline though). However, because the flash would have washed out colors and because the stage lights were sufficient to light up Kanna, I opted instead to use natural light. The results look more correct color-wise (this is how the image came out of the camera, with only a resize applied - no color or contrast correction).

Ex 4c: Judicious use of flash. Note: resize only. In this case, I tried to take a flash shot of the stage. Bad move. Because of the distance, the flash got the audience, but not the stage. As a result, I've underexposed the stage for the shot, and there's a color shift because the white balance for my camera chooses the flash subjects for white. Don't waste your time shooting flash if you can't hit the subjects. A standard shot without flash would have been fine here, though it may have been subject to some bluriness.

[ improving the shots you take ]

The following are some simple tips you can use to make some of your cosplayer shots better.

· Make sure to set up and compose your shot the way you want (example). You should ask yourself what details of the cosplayer you want to shoot. For example, you may want to get the full outfit if the costume is incredibly intricate, or perhaps you might want to just shoot the upper torso if the details you need are there (especially if you are trying to focus on the face - an upper torso only shot can be perfect). Remember to just take a moment and actually look at the shot you're taking. Simple things like making sure that the sun or strong lighting isn't directly behind the cosplayer (causing a silhouette), that you aren't cutting off certain details that should be in the shot, that you aren't adding too much extraneous matter (like onlookers) into your shot, and that you're shooting the appropriate angle for the pose can all help make a shot look much better.

· Get in as physically close as you can (example). If your camera has a zoom, try to avoid being tightly zoomed in if you can. Instead, just get a bit closer to the cosplayer. The idea is that your hand (if you are hand-holding a camera) is inherently unstable, and your hand will always shake at least a bit. The shake is exaggerated when you use zoom. Also, when you use zoom, the camera lens also potentially has to slow down. This acts as a double whammy that causes pictures to have a blur to them if it has to be shot at too slow a speed for your hand. Therefore, keep zoom to a relative minimum when shooting cosplayers portrait style, though perhaps above the absolute minimum (if you are using a lens with a strong wide-angle - such as for a landscape shot). If you are using a 35mm camera, a 50mm zoom should be fine. Digital users can try to find an equivalent, though presuming no landscape shooting, as wide as possible.

· For digital camera users, try to shoot at the highest resolution possible. After all, storage is cheap but missing pictures because they did not come out well can be expensive. Therefore, shoot as high a resolution as you reasonably can. This also applies to quality settings (if your camera can do multiple levels of compression on the images, minimize it). As long as you are getting a reasonable number of shots for the storage media you have, shoot as high a resolution a shot as you can. It can help later when you do digital processing and decide that you need to crop, and remember that it's always easier to size a picture down than to make it larger. Remember that you want 150 pixels/inch (150 DPI) at minimum if you want to print, so shooting a high resolution is the only way if you want large prints to look good. When I shoot with my DSC-F707, I will shoot general cosplayer portraits at 2048x1536 or larger if possible (the max I can do is 2560x1920). This gives me sufficient detail to do a good 8x10, or an okay 11x14 print.

· Know your camera as much as you reasonably can, its features, strengths, and limitations. While there's no way that most people can be expected to learn and remember the features of most complex cameras, most users can at least learn the basic features of such cameras, and can learn most/all of the features of a simple camera. Since knowing these features can help make your shot better at camera-time, it is incredibly helpful to learn them. Knowing things like white balancing, red-eye reduction, how to manually adjust film exposure, etc., can all help you to improve the quality of your shot. More importantly, know what your camera can't do (flash range, what picture will be taken versus what you see in the viewfinder/LCD, etc.) so that you can compensate.

· Steady your shot (example | example 2). Want to stop blurry cosplayers? Then make sure you hold the camera still. To this end, make sure you hold the camera with both hands close to you, and keep your arms close in to your body if you are trying to hand hold the camera. Don't try holding the camera straight out in front of you, arms outstretched, unless you have nerves of steel. To help freeze your shot, either get more ambient light on your subject or use a flash to freeze action. If at all possible, use a sturdy object (like a wall) as a prop for your camera or arm to steady. If you still can't hold your camera steady enough to get a still shot, then you might want to consider using a tripod/monopod to steady the camera. Also, if you are trying to shoot an action shot (versus a cosplayer portrait), it obviously helps to shoot them when they aren't moving, unless a motion blur is the desired effect.

· Know when it is best to use a flash and when it is best to avoid it (example | example 2 | example 3 | example 4). Obviously, if you don't have enough ambient light on a cosplayer, you'll need to use a flash. However, keep aware of what is sufficient ambient light, and don't use a flash unnecessarily in darkness when there's enough lighting to take a picture. Flashes tend to wash out colors. The minimal flash use applies doubly if the cosplayer is outside the range of the flash (such as a stage performance during a masquerade, when they are usually well outside the range of shooting) - if you can't hit them with a flash, don't waste your time. Also remember that in taking a picture at night that the only thing you usually need lit is the subject of shooting (the cosplayer), and the background could go relatively black without problems. While shooting without flash may cause your shots to be potentially blurrier, you'll appreciate it if you can get away without a flash when the colors are more true to life.

On the other hand, consider using a flash at times when you would normally not do so when shooting portraits of cosplayers. When using a flash on a subject that might be standing in a shadier area, the flash can act to fill in the shadows naturally produced by the ambient light. This leads to a less harsh shadow on subjects, and can usually result in making the subject look younger than they might look in real life. The ambient light is usually still stronger than the flash, so the colors should be alright. Try it.

· Finally, remember Sturgeon's Law: "90% of everything is crap". As harsh as that sounds, the statement is fairly true and leads to a reasonable conclusion. If you go shooting with the assumption that most of the shots that you are going to take are not going to come out too good, you are more likely to simply compensate by taking more shots. The logic is simple: just shoot as many shots as you reasonably can. For cosplayers, this means that if you can get enough time to shoot two shots, then shoot two shots, preferably with different angles or different poses. This way, you can make up for the various problems that may come up when you shoot pictures. I'm usually happy getting 10% of my shots to come out reasonably good (that's like getting 4 good shots out of a 36 exposure roll).

This paradigm of shooting should be less of a problem to digital picture shooters than it is to film shooters, since digital picture shooters can always review the shots they took and remove the obviously bad shots. However, for serious digital photographers, don't forget to bring spare storage media. For film shooters, a photographer friend once told me that you should anticipate the number of rolls of film you think you'll need, and then multiply the number by 4 to get the number of rolls of film you should bring. While my wallet has refused to bear out the numbers, experience has told me that his logic is sound. At the very least, it is sensible to use a multiplier of 1.5 or 2. After all, buying film on-site can really hurt where it counts: the wallet, and missing good shots because you ran out of film hurts even more. Processing so many rolls of film could cost a lot of money, but the end results usually can justify the cost.

I hope that at least a few of these tips help you to improve your pictures from the get go. In part two of this series, I'll talk about what do when your shots need some help.

—jason