Renaissance Faire - Fall 2017

[rpcrowe]

My city of Escondido holds a Renaissance Faire twice yearly in a local county park. It is always a fun colorful event to visit. This year I was lucky, my camera club had free passes to the event which was held yesterday and today. We opted to shoot Dia de Muertos yesterday in San Diego and the Renaissance Faire today which was very fortunate since the city of San Diego is on the ocean and usually 10-20 degrees cooler than inland Escondido. However. Saturday was a hot day and Sunday was quite cool so, we were fortunate in both choices.

If you ever have the opportunity to visit and shoot a Renaissance Faire, I recommend you do it. This is especially true of photographers who may be a bit shy asking permission to photograph folks. The performers at the Faire love to have their pictures taken and are very cooperative. It is a wonderful way to get over hesitation about asking permission to shoot!

The Fall event is usually combined with a Halloween Motif which allows the participants free rein in selecting costumes...

Here are some of the shots I got today...

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.


I shot these hand-held with my Canon 5D2 wearing a 70-200mm f/4L IS lens and a Canon 600EX RT fill flash on a camera flip bracket...

[Shadowman]

Nice series.

[rpcrowe]

Thanks John... It was lots of fun!

[chauncey]

Now that ya got them, what are ya going to do with them?

[rpcrowe]

We make them available to the performers... That is why we get into the Faire free...

[Dave A]

Really enjoyed this series, nicely done.

Dave

[rpcrowe]

Thanks Dave,

Here are a selection of images that I have shot at various Renaissance Faires over the years...

https://rpcrowe.smugmug.com/Events/2...aire/i-rzQXXWZ

[Manfred M]

Nice series Richard. The second image is definitely the strongest of the lot. I find that your fill flash is a bit too hot in a number of the shots.

[rpcrowe]

Manfred,

I also like the second image best.

I did reduce the power of the flash by about a stop but, obviously not enough for up close shooting. The second image was shot at a longer distance from the subject and hence, more diffused flash at the subject...

I just realized the problem with Sundays fill-flash at the Renaissance Faire. I normally use this mini softbox to diffuse my flash.



However, since this softbox includes an interior baffle which makes it an efficient diffuser. However. it is fairly front heavy and tends to slip so that it points down. I counter this tendency by taping the softbox onto the flash head. It works great that way. However, as I was leaving for the Dia de Muertos celebration on Saturday, I couldn't find my gaffer's tape. I didn't want to use any other type of tape because it might leave a residue on the equipment. So, I just tried to cinch the softbox Velcro ties tightly but, that didn't really work. It was a PITA with the softbox trying to point down during all of Saturday's shoot.

I decided to use an old Stofen diffuser I had laying around for Sunday's shoot. I never shoot with that darn thing and decided to get some use out of it. Well I found out two things: the Stofen doesn't work all that well in the way I hoped, for diffusing direct fill-flash; and I found out what happened to the gaffer's tape.

I spoke to my wife who is visiting her sister in Texas and she told me that she had put the tape in our painting supply box, thinking that it was black masking tape At least she didn't use any of it to actually mask with That would have been a pretty expensive substitute for a two dollar roll of masking tape

Thanks,
Richard

[CaolIla]

Great shots