Melbourne Supanova 2020 Logistical Review (Patreon)

Melbourne Supanova was a tough weekend were everything seemed to be going wrong. Flight over was delayed taking off, the usual just over 1 hour flight to Melbourne lasted 2 and a half hours meaning we were getting in after the hotel check-in cut off which we quickly had to organise upon landing, the hotel was changed on us last minute after I'd gone to great lengths to get my assistant a room in the same hotel (which was now the wrong hotel), my room was on the first floor up stairs (I walk with a mobility aid!), we were using a new type of backdrop that wasn't working out as well as we hoped and a few other minor things. Luckily I was with amazing friends which compensated for a lot. 

There were two other major things that happened on the weekend.

As you may or may not know we use the Elementice system that instantly uploads and brands every image I take and the cosplayers have instant access to there photos to post to social media. Due to my Canon 5D Mk3 being so old and battered the USB port is a bit flaky and we were having issues when we first started using the system last year so I borrowed a  5D Mk3 from  Elementice. As you know I advocate shooting in full RAW and after some close calls i always check the setting when I use a new camera but I wasn't paying as much attention as I should. Long story short I shot 75% of the entire con in Medium JPG which is severely hampering image processing. There is still a way to open JPGs with Camera raw but the limitations of how much you can work with a JPG become instantly apparent. Some tools work fine but others like changing the colour temperature don't work at all. I got so many amazing shots and it makes me sad just looking at them now that they are so compromised. I almost cried when I realised what had happened.  

The Elementice system has evolved a lot and is a bit more robust and seems to work with my camera now so hopefully it wont happen again.

Secondly I have been looking at a way to lighten by camera gear (and baggage in general) as travelling with a camera bag over a metre long as well as a walker is extremely difficult, not only at airports but taxi's and ubers in particular which can fit one but has trouble with both.  

On the Saturday I tested out Snap Happy Ian's gear which is about a quarter to a third the weight of my lights. So all the shots in this post were shot on Medium JPG using two AD200's, My Jinbei's have good optical slave functionality and I used the HD400 as a fill light for some. I don't think they look to dissimilar to my usual shots. However with the lack of events its difficult to know if it's worth spending the money on new lights, transmitters, brackets etc when I don't know how many events I'll get to use them at going forward.