A Random Thought from your Director

by Randall Whitlock

These days everybody and his dog has a digital camera. (I'm a bit behind the technological curve - my dog's camera is only 1.3 megapixels.) This creates a new set of problems and a new set of opportunities for the SF convention masquerade.

First off, anybody with a lick of sense knows that flashes are naughty. It's as rude to fire a flash from the masquerade audience as it is to talk on your cell phone during a movie. At its worst, the flash can dazzle the person on stage and cause a nasty accident. Flashes are completely ineffective beyond about 15 feet and won't help your pictures anyway.

Even after the MC asks people not to take flash pictures, the flashes still pop. I suppose some of these people don't understand their cameras well enough to disable the flash.

Rant ended. What follows is for the rest of us:

I've been looking over some CopperCon 25 Masquerade photos shared by David Jeppesen and Tee Morris, who kindly switched off their flashes. Both gentlemen had excellent working positions, with David at house right and Tee at house left.

The striking thing about both sets of pictures is the "subject motion" problem. There was not enough light on stage to allow the cameras to use a short exposure time. David was using a camera with a small lens mounted on a tripod. His backgrounds are rock-steady while the subjects blur out, often into fast-moving steaks. Tee's camera had a wider, faster lens, but he was holding the camera in his hands. These pictures have less subject blurring, but there was more camera motion, causing some of the backgrounds to go out of focus.

What can we do about it?

In my opinion, the audience should be allowed and encouraged to take pictures. I wish to help them.

First off, we can throw more light on the stage. I currently use four 300-watt par units for a typical hotel-size stage. This is good enough for the human eye, but not enough for good pictures from a consumer-grade digital camera. I have some more par cans and I'll acquire more powerful lamps for them between now and next CopperCon.

The other part is up to you, the masquerade contestants.

---Pause in the middle. ---

If the dynamics of your presentation allow, please pause for a couple of seconds in the lighting "hot spot" at center stage. Maybe count to five. This will allow just enough time for an autofocus to set and the camera to expose. Your reward may be a fine photo of your costume on stage.