It's my 3rd year taking photos at the Anime Festival Asia, Singapore (AFASG) and it seems to be getting bigger every year. It's certainly the biggest anime/cosplay event in Singapore.
Looking at my blogs in the previous 2 years, my camera setup seems to be getting bigger and bigger, even though I'm still on the Micro Four Thirds format.
For my camera body, I've since upgraded my Panasonic GX85 to a GX9, which looks almost identical, but is ever so slightly bigger and heavier. The 20 megapixels versus the 16 megapixels gives me more flexibility to crop my photos, and the in-body image stabilization is supposed to be better (more on that later).
A flashgun is required, as some fill light is needed against some bright backgrounds, and there are areas of the venue which are quite dark. I'm still on my Godox TT350o flashgun which has been serving me well.
The big upgrade this year is my Panasonic Leica 10-25mm lens. It's a premium lens with a fast f/1.7 aperture to let in more light as well as provide a shallow depth of field which is desirable since I'll mostly be taking portraits with busy backgrounds which I would like to blur out as much as possible. A zoom lens is desirable because you may not get to get close or move away from your subject as you please in this busy and crowded event.
Yes, it's a humongous lens by Micro Four Thirds standards, so a handgrip (I use the Panasonic DMW-HGR2 is almost essential if you're like me and use a wrist strap instead of a neck strap. Not too big a problem holding this combo for half a day, but I did take breaks in between.
Panasonic Leica 10-25mm
Firstly, it isn't as sharp as I would like at the maximum aperture of f/1.7. I suppose it is better at certain focal lengths, but on the second day of the event, I kept to f/2.0 instead and that gave me satisfactory results.
Secondly, as this lens does not have image stabilization, I saw motion blur in several of my images even though they were taken at 1/60s. Maybe it because of the nature of the event, or maybe my hand-holding isn't that great. Whatever the case, I set the minimum shutter speed to be 1/125s and got desirable results the next day.
Here're the shots I took on the first day of the event at f/1.7 and mostly 1/60s:
...and here're the shots on the second day with a f/2.0 aperture and mostly 1/125s:
Cheerios!
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