Event Horizons

Event photographers have a veritable arsenal of equipment and advice at their disposal, as Gavin Stoker discovers

Event photography covers a wide spectrum of subjects and is oft portrayed as a fast way to make an easy buck. Whilst that’s an over simplification, the facts are that there is at least the potential to make a decent return on time invested. That is if you’re forearmed with the best advice and most effective equipment. Having canvassed those in the know, that’s where we come in.

Printing

The most important aspect to get right when it comes to event photography is workflow. You might have taken the picture of your life, but unless you can rapidly turn that into a saleable commodity, it’s worthless. Therefore when it comes to choosing a print solution, it’s not just quality of output, but speed that’s important. A printer that is portable and easy to set up on the fly is also crucial.



Fujifilm Marketing Manager Peter Wigington flags up the ‘old favourites’ of the ASK2500 and ASK4000 printers as being ideal accomplices to any event photographer. “Both still sell strongly and are much appreciated by event photographers countrywide,” Peter reasons.

Suggested pricing is £1,295 for the ASK2500 and £2,450 for the ASK4000 (both plus VAT), although dealers may well offer extra incentives. Plus it’s worth bearing in mind that after one or two particularly profitable events, the kit may have paid for itself.

Equating the events photographer with a hotdog seller – not an insult, rather sound advice about getting prints in customer’s hands as quickly as possible – Stuart Morley, events guru extraordinaire and MD at System Insight flags up the HiTi P510S/Si, as the world’s first wireless printer and his company’s bestseller. A key advantage is that it can be used standalone without the need for a PC.

Not to be outdone, Mitsubishi, another favoured brand of events photographers, is fielding a couple of current print solutions in its CP-D70 series and Click Systems. The latter, an all-in-one digital micro lab, consists of a digital processing unit with 17-inch touch screen plus high-speed dye sub printer, and holds the claim of being easy to transport and operate.

The PC and Mac compatible Mitsubishi CP-D707DW meanwhile has the bonus of a double deck design making it ideal as a workflow solution when covering larger events, plus it also delivers multi-format photos in seconds. With a 300dpi resolution it can hold up to 800 6x4-inch prints, with 6x9-inch maximum print size.

Lighting

Of course, if you’re shooting attendees at black-tie balls, parties and school proms by night, then some form of artificial illumination is a must, especially if you’re setting up an impromptu studio area on site.

Chris Whittle of The Flash Centre outlines four lighting ranges regularly used for events photography. The two mainspowered options are the Elinchrom BXRi and Elinchrom D-Lite IT ranges, both of which will run off the Innovatronix Explorer where no mains power is available. They are Elinchrom Skyport radio trigger enabled and have a Speedlight compatible iCell that accommodates pre-flash sequences for correct synchronisation.

Alternatively the batterypowered options are the Ranger Quadra and Ranger RX: 400 and 1100 watts respectively, with the larger Ranger RX being weather resistant for outdoor events. The Ranger Quadra has Skyport and the iCell built in.

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