Band photo's

Teeny

Hi, I am taking photo's at a band festival next saturday and I am looking for tips. The largest band is about 200 members. We will be shooting outside in front of a brick wall. I am hoping I can get everyone in the shot and still be able to see them. Any suggestions appreciated. I have a Canon 40D and a Canon 55-250 Is and a Tamron 17-55. Here is a shot from the football game the other night.

Teeny

bandgeekndb

Sorry, I'm going to hijack the thread for a second!

As a trombone player in the Rutgers marching band, I am glad to see your shot has so many trombones and tubas in it! The low brass is the rock the band gets built on!

As for your question, I don't know of any way to get a 200 piece marching band in a shot and still see faces without doing a group pose. Considering a quality HS marching band can be spread as far as the 25 yard line either way, I'll be damned if I can think of a lens that will let you cover 50 yards side to side and still get faces.

From when the pros shot some of our competitions, the best thing they did was have one camera up on the press box and took some wide angle shots, but then the rest was on the sidelines with a nice zoom lens. Your 55-250 should cover that as long as you have a good flash.

Good luck, hope the band does well! What band is it if you don't mind me asking?

~Nick

JESTER

I have several questions for you. Is this being done in the daylight or at dark? Are you doing this officially or for yourself? What kind of access do you have to the field?

You will have to watch the bands and their formations. Sometimes they come together in the middle of the field and you should be able to get something from there. It is difficult to get the whole band unless you are in the press box or at the back of the stands. But I don't know about getting all their faces. Most of the time their instruments will be covering those and others will not be recognizable from that distance.

Both your lens should be okay. If you can get onto the field you might want to try to get individual photos with your 250. They seem to love those when I do them with my 300mm.

You said something about being in front of a brick wall. Are these posed shots? If so you can pose them closer together and maybe use the band leaders stand to take the photo from or get a ladder.

These are just a few suggestions. Hope everything works out.

Teeny

Thanks to both of you for your help. The bands are all high school marching bands. Ours is MGM. This will be posed shots in front of a ugly brick wall. Thats were the director put us. Lucky for me the band with 200 kids cancelled. The biggest one is 150 now. I am doing this for the band. There are about 10 HS bands coming. The sell My pictures will help raise money for the band. They can use all they can get now days! By the way, my son's a drummer but alot of his friends are in the brass! Yes this is in the daytime and will more than likely be very sunny. It ends late afternoon around 6.00p.m.

Teeny:D