Parades

With the Xmas parade coming up in Wellington, I did my research on parades and found wonderful tips - and managed to break most :(

Camera:  Olympus e-5 with the 14-45mm lens

• Go early, walk the route and find the best position
  Done
• Shade is better than sun
  Found a position in the bright sunshine :( But to my defence, those in the shade were not good as you wouldn't be able to see the parade properly
• Better to find a position close to an object you can lean against or lean the camera on, so that 'shaking' the camera when someone bumps against you won't be a problem
  Done, positioned myself against the traffic lights pole - perfect. It also meant no-one could stand behind me
• Be in front, be in a position where you can sit and shoot 'up' to the parade and floats
  Done................but felt sorry for the three little kids who arrived a bit late and were standing behind the crowd and couldn't see more than our backsides - and told them to come and stand in front of me. Therefore couldn't shoot up to the floats but the dad's thank you afterwards felt much better than the need to get good photos
• Shoot up, therefore not including the crowds as the background, but the blue sky
  Yeah, right...........:(
• Position yourself not to shoot in the direction of the sun
  Sure, just a shame the organisers didn't think about it and that is exactly the direction the parade moved - the sun behind them and me shooting into the sun
• Use a telephoto lens and focus on 'parts' of the parade - the detail on a costume, things others won't necessarily notice
  Nope :( Clever me decided I knew better and took one of my kit-set lenses
• Take an extra battery and memory card
  Done........but left the camera bag in the car with all these extra little things. Thank goodness I didn't need it
• Control the camera by shooting manual or in aperture-mode
  Me? I used auto after a few test-shots and not feeling 100% happy with them :(

Important settings:

• To get the person/object in front to stand out and in focus and the background a bit blurry - f/2.8, f/3.5 or f/4
• To get the entire group in focus - f/14
• ISO200 on a sunny day and ISO800 if overcast - the higher the ISO, the more shutter speed to stop the movement
• Aperture:
  Small f-stop numbers (f/2.8, f/3.5, f/4) = small depth-of-field = large lens openings
  Large f-stop numbers (f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22) = larger depth-of-field = smaller lens openings