Earlier this month we had the pleasure of attending the Tampa Bay Comic Con 2016 convention. I was very excited to come to this one, as we are usually not able to make the long trip to get here from Miami. Luckily we were in town for other business and extended our stay through the weekend.

It was mostly a great experience, which I’ll talk about below. But let me get this out of the way: it was managed poorly and a few things were inconvenient that did not have to be. Long “lines” we had to follow even in the afternoon when there were no people in the lines – in that picture above, we couldn’t just go in, we had to go around the left side of the building all the way to the end of the block, to then walk back through the rope lines (yes, they were enforced); food trucks mostly accepted cash only and the ATMs around the Convention Center were out of cash and/or out of order, etc. But beyond the (in my opinion) poor management of the logistics, the event itself was tons of fun.

One of the biggest issues at a convention, as with most indoor events, is lack of light. The Canon 6D luckily does an excellent job with high ISO when necessary, so I was not concerned when I opted to use the Canon 24-70mm f/4L IS lens primarily for the versatile range and the assistance of the image stabilizer for handheld shots. For lighting I used the Yongnuo YN-568EX II flash on camera, with an oversized diffuser to spread that light as much as possible, while keeping it portable. I wasn’t the only one with this idea, and some went well beyond that. One photographer had an octabox that he was carrying on one hand, while managing his camera on the other hand. Another photographer had a backpack set up with two flashes on top of his shoulders, for more light power and even coverage. This setup, however, was bulky and did not allow him to get to low angles as I did quite a few times. Yet a third photographer had a more sophisticated backpack system with multiple flash units firing at once, including a loose flash unit that one of his children would hold behind the cosplayer as a backlight…ingenious! But it looked ridiculously complicated and cumbersome for a day-long event.

The Suicide Squad movie had just come out, so Harley Quinn was more popular than ever:

…and quite a few other Harleys! Which was great, as everyone had a different take on the iconic character. Whereas earlier this year it was all about Deadpool, no doubt, Harley Quinn won this popularity contest.

One of my favorite things to see at conventions are families cosplaying together, and Tampa Bay Comic Con 2016 had a lot more families cosplaying together than I’ve seen at any other convention.

Like this couple’s original Star Wars / Frozen mash-up cosplay:

Or this couple’s Arrow cosplay:

Or this couple’s Game of Thrones cosplay, caught in a candid moment of affection:

And this couple’s Harley and Joker cosplay:

Of course, the larger the group, the more difficult to properly light in these tough conditions. Some of these needed some help in Adobe Lightroom to improve the lighting.

But it’s more than just couples cosplaying together…there were multiple families that were not only in cosplay, but were cosplaying as a coherent group. Like this Game of Thrones cosplay featuring mom, dad and daughter:

And perhaps the most expansive family cosplay I’ve seen to date, this excellent cast of Star Wars characters:

It warms my heart to see children enjoying themselves as these conventions. It lets me know there is a solid future for these events and my son (heck, his mommy and daddy too!) will be able to enjoy them for years to come.

My favorite family cosplay has to be this great Flinstones family. Baby Bam Bam was very friendly and well behaved, and Dad had a ton of energy and good attitude.

I guess, to some degree, I saw a sort of reflection of myself in him.

In the photo above you see that I’ve switched to the Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS so I could photograph the costume contest from the back. Here, I would have absolutely loved to have had Canon’s pricier 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II, as light was very limited. While the f/4L has great image quality, there is no substitute for getting more light on your sensor, and the f/2.8L really would have shined here.
As you can see, I was using my monopod at this point for stability as I was shooting at pretty low shutter speeds to gather as much light as possible.

Just as a side-note, it was preferable to shoot at near 200mm from the back than with a shorter focal length, closer to the front. The longer focal length and distance to the stage meant I did not have to worry about heads or other obstructions that are a much bigger concern when shooting from up close to the stage.

There were lots of other interesting characters.

I personally thought this Ghost Rider cosplay was excellent, with a ton of attention to detail. For reasons I still don’t understand, they did not get any awards at the competition.

The Scooby Doo gang has certainly grown up!

It took me a while to get this one… it’s French KISS! Mon dieu!

There was no shortage of originality…

Like this awesome zombie apocalypse Little Mermaid cosplay. We had a chance to speak at length with these lovely ladies and hearing them talk about the design and execution of their cosplay left no doubt of their dedication and talent.

Speaking of dedication…this cosplayer was carrying around a 40 pound sword all day long. Impressive!

And this cosplayer put so much attention to detail, that they received the top honor at the cosplay competition later that day.

This Dora The Explorer cosplayer was quite a character:

There are way, way too many other photos from that day to share on here. If you want to see more of the excellent cosplay from Tampa Bay Comic Con, including photos of the cosplay competition, check out the album on our Facebook page.

And I’ll leave you with one more picture. Remember, you are never too old to cosplay.

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