Suggestions for a 32 person family portrait?

WingsOfLovePhoto

I am doing a family shoot on location at a dairy farm later today. The main group is 32 people from babies on up. Then individual family shots. My idea as of right now is to place a tractor or a truck as a prop so that I can tier the people around it, shoot from on top of a hill(maybe even using a ladder) then having them in the middle of the hill and then I could still have the milking barn(which is on the bottom of the hill) in the distant background. Everyone is wearing denim bottoms. One family with black shirts, one family with white shirts, one family with denim shirts then another with a combination. I might even get a cow or 2 in there. What do you think? any other suggestions for such a large group? I have 3 lenses to choose from....a 50mm, 70-200 or 18-200 and I could get a hold of my D70 kit lens. Any suggestions how to make this a superior photo? I have never done such a large group before and the family plans on blowing up to at least 16x20 as a gift for a 50th anniversary. Any help would be appreciated.

This is around the area I was thinking but maybe a little closer to the bottom of the hill. I did maternity shots for this couple in the past. ...

Andy

Don't: shoot from a mile away to get them all in sidebyside.
Do: use a med. fl, like 85 or 100, and shoot lots of shots, left to right, filling 2/3s of the frame, portrait-orientation, left to right,overlapping by 1/3 to 1/2. Let photoshop stitch'em.

Search posts by nikolai on this subject, he's don a lot of them. Works great

davidweaver

A ladder would be useful.

You've got a great combo with the D300 and the 17-55.

Now 32 folks is 8 peeps x 4 rows. thats manageable. Mix it up a bit too.

A few things I might do.

Use a bit of fill flash but be very careful about casting shadows with it. I might even try a warm gel over the flash diffuser. This will warm up the light and make if closer to later afternoon light. Also the flash will help brighten the eyes. If you're using iTTL flash I 's bring the EV of the flash down to -3 EV. You might want to play around with the Manual flash setting at very low power. Start at 1/128 and work up a bit. Take some with and without the flash.

A tip here. I will shoot on CL and pop off more shots than the flash can handle in one burst of frames. This means that I will get some low powered and some non-flashed pics. It's kinda goofy but it has served me well - I don't have to turn the flash off and on which takes time and time = people reposing themselves.


Be VERY aware of the DOF plane. Stopping down and using the lens around 35mm (~50mm on the DX) will get you a lot of DOF. Your ladder idea will serve you well for this.

Take a gray card. Shoot a couple frames with someone holding it. This will speed up post-processing.

Shooting up to 400 ISO should still give you good results for a large print.

Have fun!

...just read Andy's post. That is another cool way to do it too. :-)

Andy

WingsOfLovePhoto wrote:

This is around the area I was thinking but maybe a little closer to the bottom of the hill.

Have the family BELOW you.