Shooting T&I's in a tent

Bodley

I'm planning on shooting some T&I's for baseball/softball. The main issue I'm facing is location. I've shot some on the field and others in the shade at the park. I'm looking for something new, less weather prone and more efficient.

I've heard of some photogs setting up a tent and shooting in the tent for a more controlled atmosphere. Does anyone have any details on this type setup?

tmlphoto

I haven't done this, but my daughters individual soccer pics were done that way. Basically, it was a small (? 10ftx10ft, three sided tent with a fake background. He used a single monolight. The pics looked pretty good, although the background was a little cheesy. He did the team pics outside. The tent would have to be much larger for team pics. I've seen backgrounds for sale at many different places on the web. It's essentially a mobile studio.

Bodley

tmlphoto wrote:

the background was a little cheesy.

I'm afraid of that kind of response. Cheesy photo

I've heard several parents complain about shots taken off the field. They wanted them taken where they play. Hence the reason I started taking them on the field. The big master light (Sun) can be tough to deal with, especially with partially cloudy conditions. Not to mention the potential squint factor and limited power of my 580ex's to over power the ambient conditions.

Just makes me

Art Scott

I worked for a local company here for a while and we always shot outdoors in area of the playing field.....we always tried to have the sun coming over our right shoulder using just enuff DOF to make the groups sharp and the "background" OOF.....I shot for 3 seasns with them only usung a Vivatar 285 and a hand held meter that measured both the ambient and flash simultaneously.....nothing fancy just a Shepard FM1000....of course I metered every third team....I did most of my shooting with my 28 - 200 zoom at 50mm or less and I had camera and flash attached to my Stroboframe and tripoded the whole time...the 285 was set manually and the zoom head was at wide so that was one thing I never had to adjust.

Bodley

Art Scott wrote:

we always tried to have the sun coming over our right shoulder using just enuff DOF to make the groups sharp and the "background" OOF

When I've shot with the sun over my shoulder it usually meant it was in the players face which resulted in "Squinting". How did you deal with this?

Art Scott

I am sorry....my head was screwed on wrong...the left shoulder of the subject....and I meant coming from their right side so it is more like side light and we rotated clockwise ( my right)as the days wore on.....

Yes that can lead to an overexposed background but if the kids look great mom and dad are usually happy.

Sorry I did not proof read....I was shooting and rotating my position not the subjects.



There were a few times that with the field layout face to the sun was only option and then I just had everyone look at the ground and slowing raise their heads to keep from being blinded.

It was tough on the fiirst few shots of the day as we would set up before daylight and start shooting as soon as the first teams arrived...usually 6:30 or 6:45 am.