Make no mistake, SDCC is an experience, whether it's enJoyable and/or
productive depends entirely on how crafty, how rude, and sometimes how
deceptive you're willing to be.
For 2 days now, my diet has consisted of free coffee, graham crackers,
and peanut butter. It's not so bad, until the stomach-cramps begin (somebody send me some fruit or something!). To take my mind off of them, I decided to photograph as much stuff as I could, which meant needing to travel quickly through a pool of human ooze and having absolutely no respect for anyone else trying to see stuff on display that you want a picture of. Taking a nifty picture at this convention is a challenge, made easier only by a very good camera, which I don't have. So to help you folks out for when you next attend, here are some tips for having fun at SDCC, and I suppose any con for that matter.
Wandering Around
You don't learn much about a booth by reading its name on a map. I saw a
lot of cool stuff I wouldn't have seen otherwise if I hadn't had just
wandered around for a few hours (though a lot of it wasn't toy-related,
heh). Half-naked cosplayers can pop out of anywhere, you might buy that
one old toy you've always wanted at a steep discount, you might walk too
close to John Morrison and get pile-drivered by his obstructive
body-guard (seriously, that dude wouldn't even let us take good pictures
of the wrestling toys because he kept getting in the way), all exciting
prospects. Do check the schedule for what panels you might like (though
honestly, panels are very boring unless you're very interested in the
people hosting them, it's just a bunch of yak yak yak).
Cosplayers
Don't be an ass and
only ask the super-hot chicks for a photograph! There are some awesome
costumes running around that are a lot more interesting than a
slave-chick in a thong.
Food
Bring
a sandwich unless you want to pay $7 for a pretzel. And lots of water,
you're gonna be running around a lot between booths and panels, you need
to hustle to get there on time for the events you want.
Bring a Backpack
You can get free giant bags at a few booths too, and you'll need them to carry your exclusives that come in giant packages.
Taking Pictures
-Because it's so crowded, you need a camera with some decent zoom-capability so you can photograph things over peoples' sholders, between their legs, awkwardly close to their boobs, wherever.
-Preferably you need a camera with manual controls, but more importantly you need a camera that lets you raise the ISO setting to something high (like 800 or 1000) without adding horrible "noise" (a grainy appearance) to your photos. Cameras can be freaking expensive, so learn to use an SLR and try renting one with a nice lens instead of buying them. High ISO lets you shoot in lower lightning at faster shutter speeds, it's ideal because a lot of the booths are poorly-lit and you need the high ISO to clearly-shoot things that are in shadow
-No tripod or FLASH needed! Just use a fast shutter-speed (I'm doing okay even at 1/100 of a second) with high ISO. If you do take flash, make sure you buy a diffuser for it (inexpensive), because the flash will make shooting things through glass very difficult by creating glare. Flash is useful for shooting cosplayers with dark costumes though.
-You can save a ton of time when editing pictures if you're condifent in your camera and skills. With a good camera, you only need to take one picture of something to know it will be good. If you're using average equipment, you'll need to take a few shots of something in hopes of at least one of them being good.
I found that sometimes the only way to take a picture you need is to be brutally uncaring of others around you! After trying to wait politely for people to move out of the way, and getting only a handful of pictures in an hour, I started just squirming my way to the front and shooting away. I'm kneeling and diving and bobbing this way and that, and it pays off, but it's so tiring. Luckily, some people step aside when they see you take pictures, giving you a little breathing-room to set-up a nice shot.
Aaaand now I sound like a boring panel, haha. PICS!
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