Taking good parade photos should be easy: Lots of color, costumes, dancers, floats, and even celebrities. But it turns out not to be so easy. You have to solve problems with where you (can) position yourself, really busy frames, lighting (especially at night), lens choice, and more.
The Chinese New Year Parade presents all those problems. I went last night, and wasn't very successful getting good photos.
To start with, I'm not sure I picked the best spot to stand. I was at the corner of Market and Geary, where the parade turns a corner. I got there more than an hour early so I could be ho against the barrier, with no one in front of me, which was good. But it turns out the spot had issues. You can see one here: a really bright display in a store on Market St. that ruined every photo it was in.
But that was after it got dark. Before that, I did OK with celebrities in cars, like the featured image of District Attorney Brooke Jenkings, and this one of Mayor London Breed.
After dark, I was constantly trying to decide between flash and no flash. My two lenses were f/1.2 and f/1.4—so they were good for low light—but if I didn't use flash, I had to deal with high ISO. And when I did use flash, I was constantly dialing it up and down.
Here's one with flash. I know—too much.
Here's one without. It was pretty lifeless, and took a fair amount of Lightroom work—including AI noise reduction and masking—to make it acceptable.
How would I do better next year? Stand in a different spot, understand my flash settings better, and shoot occasionally on continuous mode to get just the right moment or expression. Maybe then I'll come back with better parade photos.
Here's an album of photos from the parade.