Help/Advice/Tips for Holiday "prom" shots

GoofBckt

I've been hired to photograph "prom" type photos at a company Christmas party. I order two white umbrellas with lights & stands and I have a Lightsphere. I'm not much for studio type photography but I'll try anything. I'm in the research mode so I'm appealing to you all for help and advice here.
1. First, for anyone else who has done this, would you care to share some of your photos?
2. How far back would you typically set the brellies or do you just gauge it by eyeballing it on a practice subject, or existing room light?
3. For outdoor portraits, I typically use my 70-100 L, but would you recommend this lens for this type of shooting as well?
4. If you use lit umbrellas, do you still need on-camera flash?
5. I was going to fabricate my own backdrop, thinking just a black sheet and maybe a little xmas garland around?? Ideas? Yes? No?
Thanks for taking the time. (hint hint) :wink

GoofBckt

NOBODY? Anybody? Wow, I must really be a doofus.

GoofBckt wrote:

I've been hired to photograph "prom" type photos at a company Christmas party. I order two white umbrellas with lights & stands and I have a Lightsphere. I'm not much for studio type photography but I'll try anything. I'm in the research mode so I'm appealing to you all for help and advice here.
1. First, for anyone else who has done this, would you care to share some of your photos?
2. How far back would you typically set the brellies or do you just gauge it by eyeballing it on a practice subject, or existing room light?
3. For outdoor portraits, I typically use my 70-100 L, but would you recommend this lens for this type of shooting as well?
4. If you use lit umbrellas, do you still need on-camera flash?
5. I was going to fabricate my own backdrop, thinking just a black sheet and maybe a little xmas garland around?? Ideas? Yes? No?
Thanks for taking the time. (hint hint)

pathfinder

Patience, Grasshopper.

Good things will come to those who patiently wait

Anyone willing to help this fair damsel?

GoofBckt

Oh well. Thanks anyway for trying, sir pathfinder. :cry

pathfinder wrote:

Patience, Grasshopper.

Good things will come to those who patiently wait

Anyone willing to help this fair damsel?

pathfinder

GoofBckt wrote:

I've been hired to photograph "prom" type photos at a company Christmas party. I order two white umbrellas with lights & stands and I have a Lightsphere. I'm not much for studio type photography but I'll try anything. I'm in the research mode so I'm appealing to you all for help and advice here.
1. First, for anyone else who has done this, would you care to share some of your photos?
2. How far back would you typically set the brellies or do you just gauge it by eyeballing it on a practice subject, or existing room light?
3. For outdoor portraits, I typically use my 70-100 L, but would you recommend this lens for this type of shooting as well?
4. If you use lit umbrellas, do you still need on-camera flash?
5. I was going to fabricate my own backdrop, thinking just a black sheet and maybe a little xmas garland around?? Ideas? Yes? No?
Thanks for taking the time. (hint hint)

Sorry Carrie, No gentlemen in the house, I guess.

1) I don't shoot this kind of gathering, so..... For the prom type photo I assume you are meaning a posed torso shot of person or couple, where you can set up studio type lighting - Key light and fill light, and maybe a background or hair light as well. The other alternative is more candid snaps with on camera flash, hopefully bounced off a wall or ceiling somehow.

2) The closer the umbrellas to the subjects the softer the light, so no father than 4-8 feet I would suggest. Even closer if you can.

3) Out of doors a 70-200 on a full frame camera is a nice combo. Indoors not so much, and especially on an APS sensor based camera. Give consideration to a 24-70 in a full frame or a 17-55 on a crop camera. Or a 50mm or 85mm prime. Indoors, I doubt you will need longer than that usually.

4) If all your shooting is to be posed, and lit with brella's, then no, on camera flash may not be needed. If you use low power on camera flash to trigger your studio strobes, be aware if anyone else's point and shoot fires, their flash will drain your studio strobes capacitors, and can cause you to lose a shot as a result. One more reason I switched to Pocket Wizards for shooting groups with studio lighting out of the studio. The Fong lightshpere will be great for walkaround candid type shooting. Shoot ETTL with your camera in Manual mode and adjust Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speed as needed to balance ambient and subject lighting. You probably won't need high speed synch indoors at night, but it can be handy to remember at times to dial back existing ambient lighting on the background.

5) Backgrounds, ah yes. How much room do you have and what is your budget? It is easier to use a portion of the existing building, stairwell, wall, or other architectural features than trying to set up a background. Maybe other readers will offer their suggestions. If you do use a black sheet, make sure to keep your subjects more than 8 feet in front of it, so that you can have it out of focus and not have the wrinkles show up in your images. Don't stand folks right in front of it. Also, try to flag your lights so they do not hit the black background, but only your subjects. Then you do not have to spend time fixing the appearance of the background later in Photoshop.

Kind of like this image of mine - it would have been better with a bit of a hairlight for separation, but the background is truly black, not wrinkled and not grey.



One suggestion - shoot a grey card for a custom white balance, with the aperture you plan to use, at 1/160th of a second. Use this grey jpg to create a custom white balance for your camera. It will save you tons of time and aggravation later. I would then shoot in RAW + jpg. With nice lighting ratios and a custom white balance, you may find your jpgs are all you need straight out of the camera.

Your gallery has nice work, you will be great at this, I bet!

GoofBckt

Ok, this is what I was looking for in the way of advice. Thank you so much! Gray card is a great idea as well and something that didn't occur to me. I don't typically shoot this type of gathering either, I prefer outdoor shoots, but I also know I need to stretch it and get out of my box if I'm going to continue to broaden my experiences too. One more question . . would you recommend a tripod for this or is hand-held ok? I don't own a tripod right now. Thank you again. Very nice shot, by the way. Beautiful.

pathfinder wrote:

Sorry Carrie, No gentlemen in the house, I guess.

1) I don't shoot this kind of gathering, so..... For the prom type photo I assume you are meaning a posed torso shot of person or couple, where you can set up studio type lighting - Key light and fill light, and maybe a background or hair light as well. The other alternative is more candid snaps with on camera flash, hopefully bounced off a wall or ceiling somehow.

2) The closer the umbrellas to the subjects the softer the light, so no father than 4-8 feet I would suggest. Even closer if you can.

3) Out of doors a 70-200 on a full frame camera is a nice combo. Indoors not so much, and especially on an APS sensor based camera. Give consideration to a 24-70 in a full frame or a 17-55 on a crop camera. Or a 50mm or 85mm prime. Indoors, I doubt you will need longer than that usually.

4) If all your shooting is to be posed, and lit with brella's, then no, on camera flash may not be needed. If you use low power on camera flash to trigger your studio strobes, be aware if anyone else's point and shoot fires, their flash will drain your studio strobes capacitors, and can cause you to lose a shot as a result. One more reason I switched to Pocket Wizards for shooting groups with studio lighting out of the studio. The Fong lightshpere will be great for walkaround candid type shooting. Shoot ETTL with your camera in Manual mode and adjust Aperture, ISO and Shutter Speed as needed to balance ambient and subject lighting. You probably won't need high speed synch indoors at night, but it can be handy to remember at times to dial back existing ambient lighting on the background.

5) Backgrounds, ah yes. How much room do you have and what is your budget? It is easier to use a portion of the existing building, stairwell, wall, or other architectural features than trying to set up a background. Maybe other readers will offer their suggestions. If you do use a black sheet, make sure to keep your subjects more than 8 feet in front of it, so that you can have it out of focus and not have the wrinkles show up in your images. Don't stand folks right in front of it. Also, try to flag your lights so they do not hit the black background, but only your subjects. Then you do not have to spend time fixing the appearance of the background later in Photoshop.

Kind of like this image of mine - it would have been better with a bit of a hairlight for separation, but the background is truly black, not wrinkled and not grey.



One suggestion - shoot a grey card for a custom white balance, with the aperture you plan to use, at 1/160th of a second. Use this grey jpg to create a custom white balance for your camera. It will save you tons of time and aggravation later. I would then shoot in RAW + jpg. With nice lighting ratios and a custom white balance, you may find your jpgs are all you need straight out of the camera.

Your gallery has nice work, you will be great at this, I bet!

pathfinder

You will get different answers about a tripod from different folks. Some prefer to only use the tripod for framing and holding the camera and then view and fire by a remote release - they say they can interact more genuinely without a camera in front of their face and see the subject better. Lots of large format shooters work this way - like Timothy Greenfield-Sanders.

My personal preference is to forego a tripod, with flash; with hand holding, camera movement will not be an issue, so I shoot handheld.


I think whichever method you are more comfortable with is fine.

A tripod is death for candid shooting of course.

jeffreaux2

- FWIW....I can't stand to use a tripod. I feel too anchored.

But....

For a set up where you are using stationary lighting and a backdrop, using a tripod (at least for those shots) would probably be a help. Add in a strip of tape across the floor to point out to your subjects where to stand, and very little will change from shot to shot. At the very least, these posed shots ought to be very consistant.

Like PF said, 50ish mm ought to be a good focal length for such shots, and I wouldn't discount even a kit lens for these as long as there is enough light to provide critical focus......as your Aperture should be around F8 to F11.

What type of lights are you using.....continuous?, speedlights?, studio strobes?.......how much ooomph (watts)?

Will you be firing them in manual or some sort of ETTL?



Edit to add:

PF's suggestion to use some archetectual element of the venue as a backdrop rather than setting something up is great advice if such a nook exists at your location. A nice armchair can be a great staring piece for posing couples and more.

GoofBckt

I will be using compact fluorescent daylight balanced photo light bulbs, 30 Watt/5000K Longstar Brand. Will these be enough, do you think? I think I'll for-go the tripod as I tend to feel a bit too anchored as well.
Thank you so much for the tips.

jeffreaux2 wrote:

- FWIW....I can't stand to use a tripod. I feel too anchored.

But....

For a set up where you are using stationary lighting and a backdrop, using a tripod (at least for those shots) would probably be a help. Add in a strip of tape across the floor to point out to your subjects where to stand, and very little will change from shot to shot. At the very least, these posed shots ought to be very consistant.

Like PF said, 50ish mm ought to be a good focal length for such shots, and I wouldn't discount even a kit lens for these as long as there is enough light to provide critical focus......as your Aperture should be around F8 to F11.

What type of lights are you using.....continuous?, speedlights?, studio strobes?.......how much ooomph (watts)?

Will you be firing them in manual or some sort of ETTL?



Edit to add:

PF's suggestion to use some archetectual element of the venue as a backdrop rather than setting something up is great advice if such a nook exists at your location. A nice armchair can be a great staring piece for posing couples and more.

jeffreaux2

With two 30 watt sources you will need something faster than F8 and likely a fairly high ISO. The good thing is that "what you see is what you get" concerning shadows etc.

Set your shutter speed up to a speed you are comfortable hand holding and then up the ISO until the exposure is good. You will want to keep the aperture (at 50mm) no less than F4, but you will need to be very carefull that couples' heads are in the same plane (same distance from the camera).

GoofBckt

Thanks so much!! I really appreciate this. Now we're cookin with fire!

jeffreaux2 wrote:

With two 30 watt sources you will need something faster than F8 and likely a fairly high ISO. The good thing is that "what you see is what you get" concerning shadows etc.

Set your shutter speed up to a speed you are comfortable hand holding and then up the ISO until the exposure is good. You will want to keep the aperture (at 50mm) no less than F4, but you will need to be very carefull that couples' heads are in the same plane (same distance from the camera).