Live and learn...

So I had my first real event photography session last Sunday. It went pretty smoothly, no major hiccups and was fun. It was a birthday party for my cousin's family, and it was great.
I was lucky that there was a professional videographer there who I took some tips from, and who was nice enough to let me butt into his shots (complete with props).

I made a few mistakes and I learnt a lot which was the most important thing :)
Some things I'll keep in mind for next time:

0. Watch your equipment at all times!!! Especially in a banquet hall. People know these events are full of cameras and busy people and are so make easy targets. At the end of this event I saw a suspicious guy come in from out the street and into our hall (which was empty now) and scoping out the tables to see if anything was left behind.

1. Don't expect spectacular photos! This is event photography, not the 'studio' or portrait stuff I like doing, where shots can be set up beforehand, and camera angles decided on to produce a pretty picture. Event photography is more about capturing the moments, the events and the atmosphere. I'd estimate (depending on the event) 70% of the shots will be standard 'so-and-so was here' shots, 20% will be catching any action that goes on, and the last 10% might be a few interesting moments.

2. Keep some of the background in the shots. You'll need a wide lense for this. This method is not what I'm used to. I'm used to closing in on the action and clicking away. But people may prefer seeing what's going on in the background too especially for evnets like birthdays and such where a lot of family may be sitting around.

3. Use a tripod whenever possible!

4. Use RAW files, or convert out-of-camera JPEGS to TIFF files before processing them. You might be making a lot of changes to the files, and if you leave it in JPEG format each time you save the file you will lose data. TIFFs and RAW images don't lose any data. After processing everything, you can convert the files to JPEG for the client to print/use as it will be easier for him/her.

5. Have a good post-processing workflow ready. Post-processing >2 Gigs worth of photos is going to take a long time if everything is done manually (picture by picture). I love ACDSee Pro as a photo organizer - it lets me adjust brightness, sharpness etc. in batch processes. A very time-saving feature!

6. Don't post-process on a laptop unless you have a good screen. My contrasty laptop screen shows photos as very bright and colourful. When seen on a regular monitor or a print, the photos are much darker!

7. You don't need to crop every shot. See point #2 about backgrounds adding atmosphere and perspective to an event.

That's it, i'll add more if i think of anything :)