n00b question - informal corporate kids xmas party

Grainbelt

The resident camera geek at work left the company. He usually took pics of the christmas party we throw for everybody's kids. I stupidly mentioned that I had just bought a nice camera and could potentially step in. So I'm booked.

Equipment: Pentax K200D, kit DA 18-55m f3.5-5.6
Location: Inside a big arcade/playground/lasertag equipped place called the Fun Factory
Primary assignment: Shoot pics when the kids are on santa's lap.
Lighting: quite good IIRC, all flourescent, tall ceilings. pretty even light.
Expecations: low

I'm tripod shopping today. Need one anyway, just expediting the purchase. Will likely go with Manfrotto 715SHB, as I need something small enough to fit in my motorcycle panniers.

I've been thinking of picking up the FA 50mm f1.4. Seems like a good reason for a purchase. Only concern is that the DOF will be too small to get the kid and santa in focus. DOFmaster says that at f/2 and 10 feet away I would have 1 foot of DOF... I guess I'll have to buy it and practice a bit. :dunno

I had intended to wait to buy a flash sometime after Christmas. Thoughts?

As I said, this is pretty informal, but I'd like decent results. Thanks for any input.

--Mike

LensCap

Yeah these are always fun...lens will help and it's a great excuse to get a 50mm prime, shoot raw so you can fix all the goofy white balance problems

i_worship_the_King

Expecations: low

:stud

I agree you'll want something a bit faster indoors. Either that or get really good with your flash. It's MUCH easier to just get faster glass - no recharge time, and no real additional technique needed. Just point and shoot away.

You should also consider just renting some cheap lights. I've had good results from construction-type floods in a REALLY bad pinch (family portrait last year... no equipment and nothing but a point and shoot on hand. 3 construction lights on tripods behind a plastic table cloth for diffusion .) If you're lucky enough to have a photo shop around and you're planning to do it *right* be sure to consider gels to color balance ambient lighting (I think the florescent one's are slightly green...)

Good Luck!

jeffreaux2

You nailed it when you quoted the DOF Master numbers. Trying to get more than one person in the same frame in focus at 50mm and open more than F4 will be iffy at best, and really impossible if it is a child in Santas lap. I think you would be better served using your kit lens and some well balanced bounce flash. I agree that fast glass is nice, but a good flash that is compatable with your camera and will swivel and bounce will make everything you already own a LOT more flexible.

This is aside from the fact that if you want to frame the photos like the typical Santa shots we see where Santa is seen in his entirety....in a chair...with the child in his lap you will need some real estate between yourself and your subject at 50mm.

On the other hand, if you choose to use your kit lens, be careful of using it at its wider settings that cause distortion in portraits. 30mm-ish and longer should be no problem.

Grainbelt

Thanks folks! All good advice.

I did pick up the 50 1.4 anyway, and used it to take pics of my old Canon S5 IS so I can sell it and support more purchases. Sweet lens. Totally different experience than the kit lens.

While I agree with the DOF/Flash comment, there isn't any way to bounce a flash in this building (big open area, we're in the middle). I've also never used a hotshoe flash, nor do I have a bracket to put it above the camera in portrait orientation. I'm comfortable shooting in manual, and I'll probably use some moms with their kids earlier in the day to figure out the aperture/ISO that gives a usable DOF. I might use the 50 for some candids and use Jeffreaux's suggestion of the kit at about 30mm for the portraits.

If anything, this should be a pretty low-stress excuse to crash a kid's party, play some whack-a-mole, and learn some more about my camera.


One last question - with the K200D, I can use auto focus (chooses focus point nearest the camera), auto-center, which only selects from the 3 center focus points, or I can manually select from any 11 of them. Understanding that there is more DOF behind the focal lenth than in front of it, expect I should focus on the kid's faces, and not manually try to split the difference between the two people?

Appreciate any input. Been great thus far.

Grainbelt

Grainbelt wrote:

Expecations: low

And they were met, but barely.

The kids decided to grab their present and run. No santa pictures.

It was darker than I remembered, and the onboard flash didn't have the strength to do much from my position behind the pile of kids

I made a bunch of operator errors due to not knowing the camera well enough. Playing around in my house was not effective training for 20 families running around .

I think I got some good candids with the 50 1.4, they are downloading now.


Overall, not a disaster, and I have a newfound respect for the pros that do this for a living.

i_worship_the_King

I shoot mostly outdoor sports and I remember the first day indoors. It was a bloody massacre and many hours in post to try and save some shots. I then purchased a new lens the next morning (although your f/1.4 was the perfect choice.)

divamum

Grainbelt wrote:

I have a newfound respect for the pros that do this for a living.

I've always had huge respect for good wedding photogs, but it exploded even further yesterday - I just don't know how wedding photographers DO it. I was taking pix at a church function and just keeping my eyes open, staying out of the way, and trying to guess what might happen next was enough to keep me busy - oh, and wait, you want me to set the camera and expose correctly too?

Sounds like you did fine under the circumstances. One thing I've noticed as I get deeper into this photography thing is that s.l.o.w.l.y. as I get a little more secure in my understanding of the basics (ie exposure!), my mental checklist gets more reliable and, more importantly, more instinctive; my fingers go to the settings as I'm thinking it through rather than a more torturous process.

I'm also starting to think about the realities of what I'm shooting and choosing the mode more appropriately. My brain now automatically processes this information so I think "fast kids? Shuttter priority to keep it at 1/lens length, shoot raw and hope the exposure has enough latitude to get something" or, "Ugly background - go ap priority and blur that thing NOW" etc etc.

I'm still horribly slow IMO, and my keeper rate is still pathetically low, but that's why I'm very much a learning amateur and have NO illusions about anything else (even if I'm now starting to get the, "Aw, those pix of your daughter are great - will you do some for me?" questions. I'm know that I'm no pro!!!) .

Grainbelt

Grainbelt wrote:

If anything, this should be a pretty low-stress excuse to crash a kid's party, play some whack-a-mole, and learn some more about my camera.

You know what the worst part was? Newfangled electronic Whack-a-Mole. they appear on the screen, and you hit the screen. No plastic moles rising out of their holes to be bludgeoned. Not nearly as therapeutic as I had hoped. :bluduh

Grainbelt

divamum wrote:

Sounds like you did fine under the circumstances. One thing I've noticed as I get deeper into this photography thing is that s.l.o.w.l.y. as I get a little more secure in my understanding of the basics (ie exposure!), my mental checklist gets more reliable and, more importantly, more instinctive; my fingers go to the settings as I'm thinking it through rather than a more torturous process.

I was really comfortable flipping between settings on my Canon p&s. Infinite DOF was nice too, I'd shoot wide open everywhere and let the ISO-Shift warning take care of exposures.

I just need to shoot more and get comfortable with the interface on the Pentax, and the added complexity of actual DOF issues.