Group shot 60 people

Messages
4
Edit My Images
No
I've been asked to take a photo of a family gathering - 60 people ages 2 to 70+. Location staircase in old hall. Time evening. Equipment Canon 5D Mark II, no on camera flash but 4 x Bowens Esprit Gemini 500 heads. Any advice and suggestions please.
 
I've been asked to take a photo of a family gathering - 60 people ages 2 to 70+. Location staircase in old hall. Time evening. Equipment Canon 5D Mark II, no on camera flash but 4 x Bowens Esprit Gemini 500 heads. Any advice and suggestions please.

Just say No.
 
Shouldn't be too difficult.
Can you get two of your flash heads on the floor above the staircase, pointed to bounce off the ceiling? If you can, and the ceiling isn't too dark, that should produce enough bounce light to create a natural-looking overhead light.

Then place your other two flash heads, one either side of the camera and arrange your people on the staircase. It would be a good idea to get the very youngest and oldest at the foot of the stairs, sitting, and other people can just be on the stairs. Make sure that you check with them that they can all see YOU clearly - if they can't then your camera won't see them.

Don't waste your time with softboxes, umbrellas or anything else. They won't help at the distances involved and will waste a lot of light.

The name of the game here is to get fairly balanced, adequate lighting, not 'good' lighting.

Try to get an aperture of somewhere around f/8, to provide enough depth of field (that's just a guess, check for yourself) Set the lights on the ground floor to full power and the ones on the landing to whatever they need to be to produce decent results. Use the lowest ISO setting you can, increasing it as necessary to achieve your f/8 setting.

Hope this helps
 
Brave man!

Do you have access to the venue before hand to set up and experiment with lighting and a few willing victims? Might be worth arranging...
 
Brave man!

Do you have access to the venue before hand to set up and experiment with lighting and a few willing victims? Might be worth arranging...

I'll repeat - this shoot shouldn't cause any lighting problems, so as long as you can organise the people well it should go smoothly.

If you'd feel more confident with a dummy run then why not? - but all you'll need is the venue, if you can light the whole of the shot area adequately you won't need people as well. If you do have someone available you could do a test shot with them at the top of the stairs and another at the bottom but personlly I wouldn't worry about it.
 
Remember to drag the shutter an dnot rely totally on the lights.

TELL THEM TO KEEP STILL WHILE THE SHUTTER IS OPEN - TELL THEM HOW MANY THEY HAVE TO COUNT TO UNTIL IT IS SAFE TO MOVE. If you are using a shutter speed of 2 secs...tell them to count in their head to 5 after the flash fires before moving..that way you will not get blurred heads etc.

All you need, as Gary says, is to chuck some light over them. Even light,not with hot spots.
 
Back
Top