After my first visit to Comic Con earlier this year, Luch said that I should really go to Fan Expo in order to experience a really big convention. So, this Saturday Luch and I headed to Toronto to check it out. It was definitely a lot bigger than Comic Con, and it was a lot of fun to see thousands of people all dressed up as their favourite fictional characters.

One of the reasons we chose Saturday was so that we could try to see the costume contest at the end of the day. At first we didn't think we would be able to, since only deluxe pass holders had guaranteed entry, but when we went to stand in line to get in, the guy at the door just waved us through. Once we got inside, the good seats were all taken, but we thought if we could figure out where the contestants would be entering the room, maybe we could get an aisle seat with a good view. We went up to the front to ask an organizer, and he gestured to some empty seats in the front row. He said they were reserved for people with press passes, but since it was getting close to the start of the contest and not very many press people were there, he said we might as well sit there.

So, after thinking that we wouldn't get to see the contest at all, we wound up getting front row seats! I also had a good time chatting with a guy who was there on a press pass. He had just bought a 5D Mark III the previous day (he had upgraded from a Rebel XT), so we had a lot in common in terms of our camera equipment. After I mentioned that I forgot my telephoto lens he even swapped seats with me so that I could be closer to the stage. Thanks, random guy!

I took hundreds of photos, and many of the costumes were unbelievably good, but I had to narrow it down to one for my Picture of the Week. This is a photo of one of the two winners of the the "Best In Show" prize (Master division). These guys built two fully functional Daleks. They moved around, had built-in speakers with voice modification circuitry so they sounded like Daleks, and they even had working "weapons" systems that fired bursts of gas (and frightened the judges). They were really incredible.

Technical details: This photo was taken with my 5D Mark II + Tamron 28-75 at 75mm, ISO 3200, f/2.8 for 1/80th of a second.