"Geek Night" / Fuji X-E1 & X100 Event Photography in Manchester

May the 4th be with you, this year on star wars day I had the great pleasure of being asked by a good friend of mine to cover an event he was putting on in Manchester. The event was a kind of Comic-Con-esque and the 4th 'Geek Night' put on by 'Niche Nights' saw a fantastic mix of Cosplayers, gamers and fans of Sci-Fi and Fantasy, it also provide fantastic subject matter for photography and as such I greatly enjoyed photographing this event.

I stuck with a light bag of gear for this event and all the shots are on either a Fuji X100 or X-E1 with either the 35mm or 8mm Samyang on, all the flash lit shots are form an on board Yongnuo 560ii most of the time tilted up for bounce flash and manually controlled.

Shooting events like this is a great opportunity to face a new challenge as well as try out some kit, I and not previously had the chance to try the Samyang 8mm out at events and can safely say it performed really well, the crazy wide view being incredibly useful in tight conditions, shots from above had the flash facing backwards to bounce of the ceiling and overall I'm very happy form the results.

The main challenge for this event was the low ever changing light, to combat this and not have to deal with hunting autofocus most of the shots are manually focused, especially those with the X100, this doesn't always mean your subject is sharp but for me getting an awesome photo is more important than a sharp one!

Check out Niche Nights on Facebook to see more of the photos, and feel free to pop a comment below!