Which glass to use for the shots I'll take on this trip?
Four times a year I go on trips with a non-profit organization called "Lead with Character."
One of my jobs is that of trip photographer. At first it was a very casual thing but as I've gone on more and more trips I find that people really appreciate great pictures of themselves and their sons/fathers/grandsons/whoever.
The schedule for the trip is written in stone - so I take pictures at the same places every time. This cannot be changed nor can, unfortunately, the time of day that we're there (often the worst possible light!).
Here are some of the common shots:
I take a portrait of every pair/small group at the NC monument.
We also take a full group photo there - at ~8:30am!
I also do some at the Virginia monument:
I take a group shot at the VMI campus - it sure would be great to include the four canon (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) behind the group in the photo:
Probably the most important are the ones taken at the grave of Thomas Jonathan Jackson - Taken at about 3pm
I've gotten much better at the candid shots and landscape shots over the past year - but these group pictures and portraits still give me a difficult time. The light is ALWAYS bad, it seems, and I'm not yet skilled enough to overcome it. I often wonder if I'm using the right lenses.
Here's the equipment available to me (I shoot Sony):
Minolta 55m f1.7
Sigma 70-300APO 4.5-5.6
Sony (kit) 18-70 3.5-5.6
Flash - Sony HVL-F35AM
For post processing I've got i2e, PS CS3, and Picasa. For most of the shots I just run them through Picasa for cropping and auto levels. I'd be willing to spend some Photoshop time on the group shots, of course.
Anyone got time to make some suggestions? :scratch
Oh, and here's a link to a gallery: http://lwc.smugmug.com/gallery/5210997_iP2ZT#316315782_unw9e (Password: stonewall) if you want to look at a few pics and check out my camera settings.
One of my jobs is that of trip photographer. At first it was a very casual thing but as I've gone on more and more trips I find that people really appreciate great pictures of themselves and their sons/fathers/grandsons/whoever.
The schedule for the trip is written in stone - so I take pictures at the same places every time. This cannot be changed nor can, unfortunately, the time of day that we're there (often the worst possible light!).
Here are some of the common shots:
I take a portrait of every pair/small group at the NC monument.
We also take a full group photo there - at ~8:30am!
I also do some at the Virginia monument:
I take a group shot at the VMI campus - it sure would be great to include the four canon (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) behind the group in the photo:
Probably the most important are the ones taken at the grave of Thomas Jonathan Jackson - Taken at about 3pm
I've gotten much better at the candid shots and landscape shots over the past year - but these group pictures and portraits still give me a difficult time. The light is ALWAYS bad, it seems, and I'm not yet skilled enough to overcome it. I often wonder if I'm using the right lenses.
Here's the equipment available to me (I shoot Sony):
Minolta 55m f1.7
Sigma 70-300APO 4.5-5.6
Sony (kit) 18-70 3.5-5.6
Flash - Sony HVL-F35AM
For post processing I've got i2e, PS CS3, and Picasa. For most of the shots I just run them through Picasa for cropping and auto levels. I'd be willing to spend some Photoshop time on the group shots, of course.
Anyone got time to make some suggestions? :scratch
Oh, and here's a link to a gallery: http://lwc.smugmug.com/gallery/5210997_iP2ZT#316315782_unw9e (Password: stonewall) if you want to look at a few pics and check out my camera settings.
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Comments
I wouldn't bother with trying to get the statute in the frame. If the group wants the statute in the picture line them up 5-6 rows deep and fill the frame with people and then move back and include the statute. Like you did with #25 & #27 (but get closer on #25). Some thing applies to the small group pictures in front of a statue. Comes down to if you want the people or the statue to be the dominant feature.
Could pose the father/son combos around something smaller like one canon.
This shot landscape would be a perfect football line up. If you have enough time, before the group gets restless, try to get some of the blocked heads unblocked.
Only technique advise. Keep an eye on background, if it's brighter then the foreground add some exposure compensation or turn the flash on, see #42. When I'm outside, in the bright sun taking grab shots (no sports and/or long lens), the flash is on my camera.
Grab shot using the flash to fill the shadows
http://alhibma.smugmug.com/photos/305316769_fACSj-L.jpg
Keep shooting and good luck.
A more interesting picture would be using a wide angle and getting MUCH closure to the people, shoot up from your knees, and have the monument in the background. Looking at these samples, the bigest mistake in my opinion is not lens are gear, but trying to fit everything into one pic. Either make the people the subject or the monument, but not both. If the trip goers like these photos, don't change a thing.
Before you buy a new lens, I suggest using the 18 mm you have and get CLOSER. Get the monument in the background and it's most recognizable feature in the background, but don't try to get the COMPLETE monument in the background. For group shots, that's not possible, but father-son pics it is.
Or, if you do want the entire monument, move the people to just a few feet from you and have the monument to the left or right. You don't have to have the people next to the monument to have the monument in the pic. I don't think your problem is gear but technique. Use perspective to your advantage. Think pinching the sun with your fingers. You can take a picture of someone standing two feet from you and have a setting sun in the background. Or, put them 50 ft away with the same lens. The shot of them 2 ft away is going to be more interesting.
If your camera has flash, use it it for fill in. If it doesn't, get an external flash. This will help more than a new lens.
New lenses aren't really going to help here.
For the smaller shots with just a few people your best bet is to bring one or even several large silver reflectors and either a stands or assistants to hold them. Shoot against a dark background with the sun behind your subjects and use the reflector to kick light back into their faces.
For the big groups, the only thing you can really do is wait for good light because, short of an entire movie set worth of gear, you aren't going to be able to do much about the light when shooting that wide outdoors. The best bet for these kinds of shots is a hazy day either an hour or two after sunrise or an hour or two before sunset depending on the orientation of your background.
I've thought about that and I probably should do it at least once during the trip. Good idea!
I joke about "herding cats" on these trips. I can't believe that a group of mostly grown men cannot respond in a reasonable way to the request of "make sure that your face isn't blocked by the person in front of you.
I think I'm going to make use of my external flash on this trip - I've never tried it before because I didn't think it was powerful enough to do anything from the distance I've been shooting from.
I was unclear - sorry guys. I'm not considering buying new lenses - I'm just trying to make sure that I'm using the right ones of what I already have.
This is the kind of thing I'm trying to figure out. Have you got any examples of what this looks like?
Yes - this is exactly right.
Yes, I have the flash listed in my first post - and I see now that it can be effective if I position people ~20-25 feet away from the monument and 2 feet away from me (instead of the other way around) and use the fill for their faces. I do worry about the exposure of the monument. I shoot RAW though so if it's a problem I can fix it, right?
That's where it gets tricky. In a sense, I can either choose the light OR the background, but not both. Also, it depends on which trip! The November trip is easier than the July trip. For the one this week (starts tomorrow), the closest I can come is the Peace Light Memorial, which we're at about 2 hours before sundown.
Problem is that the sun is, if you're standing in their shoes, coming straight at them from the 10:00 position. I use this spot because they're standing on a set of stairs that was one of the few places I could get a picture with relatively few heads blocked.
Can't do it. We're jumping on an off a bus when we aren't walking ~half a mile at a time across the battlefield. The only equipment I'm willing to take is my camera bag (with the 3 lenses I listed and the external flash +diffuser) and my lightweight tripod, which I rarely find a use for.
Try not to use ultra-wide lens, it may distort the object on the edge.
Use the tele-zoom just for fun to take candid shots.
Standby the flash with bouncer for the fill lights in case the sun is too bright and created too much contrast.
Take more picture with more memory cards, you sure will get something really good for the host. I usually take it in jpeg and try not to use RAW so that I can sort and review it much faster on the spot. The host may expect to see the slide show within an hour after the event.
flickr.com/photos/photoskipper/
Use the lowest ISO and ND filter or polarizer, if you have one.
Better yet is High Speed Sync (HSS) mode to control ambient light. You need to use it with the HVL-F36M to provide fill but it should work pretty well. Try it at 1/500th to 1/1000th and ISO 100 and then adjust the aperture to suit.
It doesn't sound like you have much time for setup, so do what you can do. You might organize people "around" the statues instead of in front of the statues in order to make a more interesting image.
Mostly, have fun. If you're having fun and if you can shoot others having fun, it will show in the images. You don't have to be silly or anything, but a smile works wonders with people.
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Okay, so I read this and then went and tried HSS for the first time. A few things I learned - when in full manual mode, I don't know how to change the Shutter Speed, only the Ap. (Time to RTFM!). So I set the ISO to 100 and selected S mode, set it to 1/500. HSS mode can only be used with the flash pointed straight forward - I can't use the bounce diffuser I've got.
Just to be clear - you're suggesting I use this for pictures of pairs right? Get two guys rather close to the camera with the monument off to the side and ~20-50 feet behind them. Then I use the HSS to keep shadows off their faces and count on the really bright daylight being enough for the monument? Or will a shutter speed this fast make the monument impossible and I should only use this strategy for candids where monuments don't matter....?
Oh that's no problem at all - these trips are a blast. Fortunately, photography isn't the primary reason why I'm on the trip - so there's not a ton expected of me and no one freaks out if the pictures turn out poorly. Still, I'd like to get good at this because my camera sees more use on these trips than it does in the rest of the year combined.
HSS is not intuitive at first. If you want to practice, go to a local cemetary that has monuments. Take a person with you to act as a model.
HSS gives you control over the light ratios between ambient and flash. You still have to figure out when that's advantageous.
It does reduce the efficiency of the flash, but feel free to experiment. I think you will find it's a benefit once you get a little experience.
If you need to use a higher ISO to gain more efficiency from the flash, try it. What's the worse that can happen?
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Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
The other is to get the few people right next to the monument, but frame the picture in such a way that a recognizable part of the monument is in the background. It's a technique I use all the time for my newspaper when the person and the background are important like a ship christening, business owner an new office etc. You don't have to have a monument to practice. Get a willing subject and find a tree, house, etc about the same size. These techniques would only work with a few people, not the big group picture.
The picture of the father and son in front of Jackson. If you use perspective, you could make it look like they were standing next to him if you took a picture of them if they were just a few feet from you instead of by the monument.
Also, try to get some more interesting angles than just being in front. Take your first pic for example. If you positioned yourself to where the 4 guys in the monument were about 45 degrees to you, it would give the picture a 3d effect, especially with the one guy signaling a charge. Position the father and son just under the chargers. Shoot up while kneeling, and you will give a heroic look to not only the monument, but the father and son as well. It's all about perspective. This is an example. My niece was feeding seagulls. The standard shot is for someone to stand up and shoot the picture from above. I put the camera on the park bench, pointed it up and I got her reaction and the bird swooping down for the piece of bread. There's plenty of room on the left side for a picture of a monument, landmark, you just have to make sure your DOF is not too great where it blurs it out. Just imagine instead of a seagull, you had the 4 guys charging over head on the left side and the statue lines dissection the picture at a 45 degree angle instead of a horizontal dissection.
First - it's "Herding kittens", not "cats"
This will not work. Light fall-off will kill you. The people nearest the flash may be properly exposed, but will most likly be over-exposed and those furthest away will get, essentially, no light from the flash. Not a pretty sight. See next part for more info.
HSS can be used to control the exposure of objects illuminated by ambient - in this case your monument. The you use the flash to expose your subject, the assumption being that your subject is not lit as brightly by the ambient as your monument.
Set your camera to properly expose your background. Then, set your flash to fill the shadows in your primary subject - your people. Doing all this in manual will take a little more time, initially, but your results will, I think, be better.
Here's a plan. For the father/son shots, figure out where you will have each pair standing. Get on pair there. Dial in your settings - this may take a few attempts where you take a shot and look at the LCD for composition and exposure. Get one right. Now, just run through the group with all the pairs standing in, essentially, the same spot.
I hope some of this helps.
My Photos
Thoughts on photographing a wedding, How to post a picture, AF Microadjustments?, Light Scoop
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Those who have lived with both (cats/kittens) understand that cats are one thing, kittens are something altogether different
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=herding+kittens
and
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-herding-kittens.htm
My Photos
Thoughts on photographing a wedding, How to post a picture, AF Microadjustments?, Light Scoop
Equipment List - Check my profile
(Thanks for the rather odd diversion.)
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