Family Group

Messages
4,605
Name
Kris
Edit My Images
No
The mother-in-law has been nagging for some time about a shot of her family and so I utilised the local village hall and gave it a go. I was concerned that I didn't really have a nice large softbox (my biggest is 95cm) and so this was lit with a large shoot through umbrella with on-axis fill bounced off the ceiling behind. It was awkward getting myself in the shot and if I had have been looking at it, would have stooped forward as they are quite a short bunch (not that I'm tall). So typical of a larger group shot, the little one was past her bedtime and so it is a composite of 3 photo's to ensure everyone looks okish. Largest group I have lit inside with the studio gear, as normally a living room weekend warrior. Plenty of glasses to think about too. How's did I do?

PS. In the rush getting the gear ready, I forgot to change my top and so the lettering isn't great and I may remove before the MIL get's a copy. No one listened to my advice on clothing anyway ha!

32798639581_3855d555ec_b.jpg
 
Last edited:
things we have to do to keep the MIL happy :)
 
Very nice , you did very well
[emoji106]
 
I think you've done extremely well, I do like it as a great keepsake image.
Only thing I would change if it were my family would be to put a full stop in the first sentence after the word 'time'.
Hehe
 
Gets my vote too. It's a great thread so thanks for posting this. I say that as I feel lots of forum users will be asked to take photos of the family at some time or other and maybe would not know where to start.
I've not done the fill light thing myself and have only took group photos at our family gatherings with us all squished into our front room. I used a bounced speedlight whilst on camera, which worked out ok but your image is much more studio style. Does the fill make a lot of differance ?

Thanks again for the post and info.

Gaz
 
not much wrong with that shot
ps out the letters

Thanks, I will lose the letters, I kinda wished I had have changed my top though.

Very nice , you did very well
[emoji106]

Thank you.


Cheers for stopping by.

I think you've done a very good job. I like it!

Thanks. I wouldn't normally post a family shot but there's some worth in it here I think.

I think you've done extremely well, I do like it as a great keepsake image.
Only thing I would change if it were my family would be to put a full stop in the first sentence after the word 'time'.
Hehe

Absolutely ha!

Gets my vote too. It's a great thread so thanks for posting this. I say that as I feel lots of forum users will be asked to take photos of the family at some time or other and maybe would not know where to start.
I've not done the fill light thing myself and have only took group photos at our family gatherings with us all squished into our front room. I used a bounced speedlight whilst on camera, which worked out ok but your image is much more studio style. Does the fill make a lot of differance ?

Thanks again for the post and info.

Gaz

Thanks Gaz. I was surprised by how much power was needed. From memory, the key was about a stop off full power and the fill was about another stop less again. Using 400ws D Lites. I started by trying a bounced off the brolly key but needed the extra punch that shooting through gave me. There's always the option of upping the ISO but still managed base here.

Just a bit awkward being in it myself, I like to see what's going on.
 
Just a bit awkward being in it myself,
Ha ! There's no escape m8ty. You can't expect the rest of the folks to line up if the star of the show is missing :)

Yes that does sound like a lot of power, as you know I only have speedlights and was sort of thinking they could do this type of thing. I guess I will not know until I try.

Gaz
 
Ha ! There's no escape m8ty. You can't expect the rest of the folks to line up if the star of the show is missing :)

Yes that does sound like a lot of power, as you know I only have speedlights and was sort of thinking they could do this type of thing. I guess I will not know until I try.

Gaz

I don't think it would be practical with a single speedlight, you'd need multiples bunched together and you'd be shooting high ISO. In a large village hall there was certainly some distance to bounce the fill off the ceiling behind. I didn't have a large enough second brolly to be closer with unfortunately. There's not as much bounced light in the larger area as I'm used to being at home, even with the brolly.
I was shooting at f11 to give the necessary DOF too, so you'd be much wider than that with speedlights.

I also had the key as close as poss aiming the centre across to the furthest person, so feathering the left hand side. But there's that fine line between being too close, so that the fall-off is too much across them all and too far away as to be creating harder light and also using more power.

The glasses were a pain too with the fill light. It would have been easier to have had a fill close, direct and higher. Had to move it around a little to lose the reflection in the father-in-laws glasses.
 
Back
Top