Triangle JapanFest 2019: A fun shoot assisting a friend.

Looking to hang out and catch up with a friend (James Pascua Images) and it took the form of assisting on a fun shoot. The 2019 Triangle JapanFest. James has built his own Photo Booth rig which is quite impressive. It has a large touch screen which shows you as you pose, allows for a text or email of the resulting montage, and prints a photo for you on the spot automatically. Here we are testing it, purely for scientific purposes of course, once the lighting was adjusted properly.

That was one side of his booth. I was tasked with running the other side, shooting portraits for the adjacent Samurai armor booth, which comprised of Jim’s backdrop and my trusty set up consisting of.

• Sony A7III
• Sony FE 85mm f/1.8
• Godox TTL lighting
  • Adorama xPlor 200 (rebranded Godox AD200) right w/ Godox AD200 softbox attachment
  • Small TTL flash on the floor left

Simple set up but worked quite well and I had a ball. Great crowd.

As an added bonus I go to use a wonderfully absurd camera/lens setup (more on this later) that allowed me to stay near the booth and get candid shots from the event…

..as well as allowing me to create some fun GIFs.

These last two groupings of images served as an early test for a new combo mentioned earlier. Had put it together for night sports from far off, but it performed beyond my expectations for interior and candid shots. As mentioned more on this later, but the 1.5x crop, quick and constant focus, 11fps combined w/ a stellar, as close to perfect as I could ever hope to own lens made for a great time and allowed me to capture across the venue without having to stray far from the booth.

Now back to the event. In short, JapanFest hosted by the Triangle Japan Club was awesome. The culture, music, dancing, traditional clothing, armor, and food were all top-notch. Did not get to the merchandise booths, but there were beautiful wares of all types on sale. Was there from before the start until closing and there was not a dull moment (Partially owing to great company.). The vibe was a welcoming one. From the youngest to the most elder, from all backgrounds, everyone was having a great time. Looking forward to attending in the future. Would highly recommend anyone to attend.

-ELW