March/protest ideas?

[ElDude]

I've discovered there's an anti BNP march tomorrow in my town, so I've decided to pop down there (anything against those racist morons, is worthy of my time) to photograph it, weather permitting as it's been torrential here today!

Anyway, does anyone have any tips on this sort of thing as I've never actually done this before, I've just realised.

I'm limited lens wise, although I think they're probably perfect for this, being they are:

nifty 50 1.8 (I was thinking small group shots, possibly single person & banner)
Sigma 105 2.8 (close portrait)
Sigma 12-24 4.5-5.6 (group shot of start/finish point)

I was more concerned with settings really as I generally tinker at the time with settings to suit what I'm doing and don't generally plan for things (probably the worst thing you can do ).

As I've seen a few people doing these recently (and a lot in the past), what would others recommend? Hopefully the weather will just be overcast, and not monsoon season as it has been today.


Oh and on a side note, has anyone got any DIY ideas for keeping the camera (30D) dry, as I don't have a cover?

 

[Raikiri]

Oh and on a side note, has anyone got any DIY ideas for keeping the camera (30D) dry, as I don't have a cover?

Plastic bag over the whole lot, elastic band over the end of the lens and then cut out a hole.

You can still see the screen/viewfinder and access controls but the body and lens will be covered pretty well. Ofcourse changing lens and using a zoom would be a pain in the arse though. I would just stick to the 50mm prime for most shots.

 

[ElDude]

Hopefully I won't need it, but you never know.

I'll be shooting in RAW anyway, so I'm going to have a fair bit of give n take for processing.

To be honest, I don't think I'll have much trouble with the shots themselves, more of a problem with the composition as they move through the town. Most streets are pretty narrow, apart from the start point which is on a main road, but they'll most likely be in a car park area to start filing down a pavement to the small road. I don't think there will be more than 3 or 4 good areas to take photos, out of the whole thing. I'd put money on the only photos appearing in the local paper, coming from the first 200 yards.

I may see if I can get roof access to the car park to take a couple. Although if I did that, I'd never get down and catch up with them again

{edit} Okay, I've now found out the start and finish for this march, so I've got a pretty good idea where to go to get the shots now. I wish I could be in two places at once.

 

[ElDude]

Well I'm back from this and I'm so tired!

They were marching at a pretty fast pace throughout the whole demonstration, while handing out leaflets. I was having to go flat out like a power walker most of the time to get ahead, then I stopped to take photos of random people as they went passed me. At one point a chap photographing the event moaned at me that he was surrounded by Canon users, so I cheered him up by telling him I'd happily buy a D300 if someone stole all my Canon kit

It was at this point it occurred to me that I was now miles behind them, so I had to run the length of the town centre to get ahead of them for the final section of the walk back to the Miners institute.

The most annoying part of the day was trying to get a photo of a "peace" flag. The bloke carrying it kept moving his back to me so I was looking side on. I've rattled off over 200 shots of various stages, as I've now learned the hard way that you really need two cameras with different lenses to cover this sort of thing. The only other thing that would have come in handy would have been the Canon 17-40L. I used the Sigma 105 for most shots as we were walking as I was trying to capture the people rather than the group. I took a couple of the entire group with the 12-24 as they were posing before the start, and there are a few with the nifty 50 at various points.

Hopefully I'll have about 10 good shots if I'm not my fussy self about composition. I basically took burst shots of a lot of groups, as people were moving diagonally away from me most of the time, making it slightly more difficult. Everything was shot in RAW so I've got all the processing to do now.

I've just finished transferring the files over, so I'll go watch BSG and then make a start

 

[ElDude]

http://niallallen.deviantart.com/gallery/

I've just uploaded four shots, for now. I need to process a hell of a lot more, but I'm shattered at the moment, so it will have to wait until tomorrow

In the mean time, have a shot of a wall