Though I love photography, I’m not particularly good or experienced.
Later this month I’ll be tasked with taking a large group photo: about 35-40 people, with a dozen or so being small children. The photo will be taken at night, indoors, against a tan wall. No risers are planned; the natural height variations will probably suffice.
My concern is lighting a group of this size: perhaps 20-30 feet wide, and four rows.
I will be using a Canon EOS 20D. I have two continuous-light systems with 32-inch umbrellas, each 500 watts. one umbrella is white and the other silver-lined, which reflects much more light. I can get another silver-lined one to replace the white, if needed. I plan on using the built-in on-camera flash for fill.
In some informal tests, lighting was a bit uneven. The two umbrellas couldn’t fill the entire width. Perhaps I didn’t place them optimally; I had them aligned near the edge of the group, slanted inward.
I’m open to suggestions on how best to light this large group. I’m open (nay, expecting) to purchasing some additional equipment, within reason.
The options I’ve come up with on my own:
buy a third continuous-lighting umbrella unit
buy a third stand unit, but as a flash (with optical slave ability?)
buy a new on-camera flash, such as the Speedlight 430EX, using the two stands mostly for highlight/edges
Or some other possibility that makes sense. It will be very rare for me to shoot groups of this size in the future, so solutions that have flexibility are most-sought.
Again: noob. Talk to me like I’m a photographic idiot.
(I would hire a professional, but there are factors beyond cost that complicate the situation)
I’ll start by saying that the built in flash isn’t going to do much of anything in such a large group. If the group is going to be 30 feet wide, think about how far back you’ll be standing and figure the built in flash is probably worthless once it’s more then 15 feet or so away from the camera.
Personally, if it were me taking the picture, I’d probably set up lots of thoise painters halogen lights on stands (I take off the wire protective cover, it tends to cast a shadow) and see if how that does.
Plan on doing some white balance work no matter what you do. In fact, it might not hurt to make sure you have something white, somthing black and something grey in the picture somewhere. Even if you edit it out, but just so you have a reference since your colors will probably be wonky if you mix different lights.
You might want to take a coupld of pictures using RAW.
Oh, also, make when you are taking about flashes, you don’t say ‘built-in on-camera flash’ Typically built in is the little on board flash that pops up when needed. On camera would be the Speedlight you referred to later.
Another thing to remember, I usually do product shots, where nothing moves and I can keep changing my lights and camera settings until I get everything right. Often times I’ll hang sheets over the lights (well not over them, they’d burn, I have holders that I clip the sheet onto) to diffuse some of the lights. I’m really not sure how halogen lights would look on people.
Takes LOTS of pictures. I’d say aim for at least 20, but maybe as many as a hundred if they’ll stand that long.
Feel free to post the results here if you need any more suggestions or help editing them.
Thanks, Joey P. You’re right: “built-in” and “on-camera” are mutually exclusive; thanks for pointing that out.
I might be a bit leery of using general-purpose halogens because I’d think they’d have a different color balance than my photo lights, but perhaps this is not a valid concern.
Let me add in a bit more data:
I’ll be using an 18-55 lens, so I can get the whole group in even when being somewhat close (but I’ve a concern about depth-of-field, so I don’t think I want to be any closer than necessary).
The group will be wearing a wide variety of clothing, from black to very colourful to white. The point about having cards in the scene is a good one, though.
I generally do OK editing, at least in the basics: adjusting levels, etc.
In line with what JoeyP said, it’s going to be difficult to balance flash and incandescent lighting. Try and stick with one type if you can. And allow some room at both ends of the line of prople because you may need room to do some perspective adjustments due to the WA lens. Have you considered taking two, or more, seperate shots and assembling them in Photo Shop? I’ve had some success with that.
I’m a huge fan of off-camera flash. Discovering the Strobist blog was a real epiphany for me. So therefore, I would be inclined to advise that if you just want to add a third light, you’d get a LOT of flexibility by picking up a Speedlight and a remote trigger ($30 wireless solution should work fine…see Strobist for details).
Balancing color between the flash and your incandescents isn’t hard. Just remember that you can’t easily do it in post processing. But it’s trivial to apply an orange filter to the flash unit, lowering its effective color temperature. I use orange filters a lot when I balance incandescent ambient lighting with a low-level flash fill. Then, in post-processing, you can easily white balance the shot so all the light looks right.
Seeing as how many of them are children and you won’t be able to get them to stand still for a longer exposure, I’d say ditch the continuous lights in favor of more strobes.
This is a long shot, but it once worked for me. I had a large group, 100-150 people; I finally just ditched the umbrellas and aimed the flash guns right at them. I was well back from the group 50-70 feet at least. It was a daytime shot on a stage in a park. I’m pretty sure the shadows would have been too sharp at night.
I’ve read through some of the material on strobes you guys provided, and it sounds like my only real choice is buying a couple of strobes. Just perusing the offerings (not sure if I’d want monolights or slaves, if I’m interpreting the choices correctly), it seems I’d need to spend upwards of $500 for perhaps two 500 w-s systems. That’s a reasonable investment for a home studio, but not so much if shooting large groups like this is a one-time event. Hmmpph.
What is the end use of this photo going to be? If it’s not going to be printed very large, maybe you should just crank the ISO up, and use available light and bounced strobes.
Just pointing out that in most cities of reasonable size this stuff can be rented at a somewhat reasonable cost. A couple of high power AC powered units could be used.
There are several brands of AC powered units made for studio use. I have a Photogenic Flashmaster 400WS unit that I bought used many years ago and it can power 4 heads at once. Has a modeling light too.
I see you’re near Atlanta, check the yellow pages for photographic equipment rental.