Issues I consciously tried to improve on this day:
- Controlling my boom-mounted strobe power: 1/16 is about right for a subject filling the frame at 30mm in dealer hall ambient; 1/8 for double the distance
- Pushing up shutter speed in brighter areas to take advantage of wider aperture. I'm usually in Shutter Priority during cons to make sure it never drops too low. I wish I could just set a shutter floor and work in Aperture Priority or something instead. Full Manual Mode is great but I'm noticeably slower with it and I hate making a cosplayer wait. Might have to look into Program Mode instead.
- Pushing up shutter speed at longer focal lengths. In school, the teacher just told us that 1/30 was the general safe speed for handheld, but we were always using 35mm lenses so that always worked. The real formula should be 1/length. That kind of sucks because it means I have to be at 1/160 at full zoom (or 1/125 if I want to push it).
- Background awareness: Something I've been needing to work on for a long time and I'm finally getting into the habit. SLRs will shoot real fast when you want it, but in a crowded con it pays to wait for your background to improve.
