My 1st Post...Need help w/ LARGE group (30) portrait!

argibson1

Hi All!

I have read some posts about taking large group portraits and gotten some GREAT advice! I was wondering if I could pick your brains a bit more. I mainly do photography as a hobby and mostly of my family...okay, mainly my daughter!:D I think I have a decent eye for what looks good in a photo but still learning the technical side of it all.

At the end of September I am taking on the task of family portraits for my grandfather-in-law's 80th birthday! There will be a total of 30 people involved in the main group photo but I'm also taking small group shots of individual families. We are taking the photos in Grandpa's backyard in Missouri. Unfortunately I live in California so I am having to plan my shots from here. I've attached a photo of the area I'm hoping to use for the photos. We are starting the pictures at 11am but may be taking some at around 1pm when the last person flies into town. Here are my questions for all of you...

1. I suggested we coordinate clothes by wearing white shirts and jeans. I see from some threads that white is not suggested. Based on the location of pictures and time of day, is there better options for color of clothes?

2. Any suggestions for lighting based on the size of my group (30 people) would be GREAT!!!! I have a Canon Rebel xTi EOS 400D. My backup plan if it rains is in the living room of the house. There is good natural light but will have to experiment with the flash that day! :scratch

3. Any other helpful thoughts you can suggest would be GREAT! I'm VERY excited about this opportunity.

Thanks so much for your help!!!
Amanda

pyrtek

argibson1 wrote:

1. I suggested we coordinate clothes by wearing white shirts and jeans. I see from some threads that white is not suggested. Based on the location of pictures and time of day, is there better options for color of clothes?

Yikes! Anything but white. I'd also steer clear of black and red.

argibson1 wrote:

2. Any suggestions for lighting based on the size of my group (30 people) would be GREAT!!!! I have a Canon Rebel xTi EOS 400D. My backup plan if it rains is in the living room of the house. There is good natural light but will have to experiment with the flash that day!

What lighting equipment do you have access to?

argibson1 wrote:

3. Any other helpful thoughts you can suggest would be GREAT! I'm VERY excited about this opportunity.

Set your camera up on a tripod and when you're taking The Shot make sure
you shoot a burst of as many shots as the XTi allows before it chokes. The
reason for this is that with such a large group you're very unlikely to get one
shot where everybody is standing/looking/smiling just right. With a lot of shots
to choose from you'll be able to combine them in Photoshop. Having the camera
on a tripod ensures that you'll have a perfectly static background which makes
the later task of combining images much easier.


Good luck to you and share your results!

argibson1

Thank you so much for your suggestions on color. I got the feeling that white wasn't a good idea after reading some of the other strings. Is white not a good option because of lighting? Is white okay if it's mixed with another color? My other thought was maybe do all various shades of blue or mix white and blue. Do you think it's best to have all one color or a combination of colors? (Yes, lots of questions but I promise I'm learning!)

As far as lighting available, I am planning to get a flash unit for the camera. My husband just recently got me the camera and since I'm still learning it we decided to stick with the built in flash until we knew what I would actually need. Any suggestions?

I LOVE your suggestion about the tripod and shooting as many as possible! Photoshop is a GREAT thing and combining the pictures is a GREAT suggestion! Thanks again!

I'll defintely will share some photos when I'm done!
Amanda

pyrtek

argibson1 wrote:

Thank you so much for your suggestions on color. I got the feeling that white wasn't a good idea after reading some of the other strings. Is white not a good option because of lighting? Is white okay if it's mixed with another color?

The problem with white is that it reflects much more light than any
other color (dear purists, no, I am not saying white is a color. I am simplifying
for the sake of clarity). In other words, if you take a matrix reading of a group
of people wearing white shirts, your results will be skewed. You can always
compensate for that, but that requires effort which is unnecessary if you have
the ability of removing the white shirts from the equation. And you do, from
what you've said.

argibson1 wrote:

My other thought was maybe do all various shades of blue or mix white and blue. Do you think it's best to have all one color or a combination of colors? (Yes, lots of questions but I promise I'm learning!)

No, I didn't mean that everybody should wear the same color. I was only
suggesting that you avoid "colors" that are difficult. White, black and red
are such colors.

argibson1 wrote:

As far as lighting available, I am planning to get a flash unit for the camera. My husband just recently got me the camera and since I'm still learning it we decided to stick with the built in flash until we knew what I would actually need. Any suggestions?

The builtin flash will be of no use in a 30+ person shoot. If the day of the shoot
is overcast, then you're pretty much safe. But if it's a sunny day, you'll have a
problem without extra lighting which you control. If you shoot with the sun,
you'll have people squinting and you'll have very harsh shadows on their
faces. If you shoot against the sun, you'll have dark faces with little detail.
In other words, there is little chance of getting a good picture without some
external lighting in such a situation. In this case you can try reflecting sunlight
onto your subject. For example, if you shoot against the sun and have 2
people holding white sheets at both sides of the group in such a way that they
reflect sunlight onto the group, then you can get back some of the detail you'd
lose by shooting into the sun. Obviously, this is something you have to try out
before the actual shoot.

argibson1

Thank You!
Thank you for this explanation. That's exactly what I was concerned about. Looking into other color options for clothes...why make things harder on myself than it needs to be right?!

pyrtek wrote:

The problem with white is that it reflects much more light than any
other color (dear purists, no, I am not saying white is a color. I am simplifying
for the sake of clarity). In other words, if you take a matrix reading of a group
of people wearing white shirts, your results will be skewed. You can always
compensate for that, but that requires effort which is unnecessary if you have
the ability of removing the white shirts from the equation. And you do, from
what you've said.


No, I didn't mean that everybody should wear the same color. I was only
suggesting that you avoid "colors" that are difficult. White, black and red
are such colors.




The builtin flash will be of no use in a 30+ person shoot. If the day of the shoot
is overcast, then you're pretty much safe. But if it's a sunny day, you'll have a
problem without extra lighting which you control. If you shoot with the sun,
you'll have people squinting and you'll have very harsh shadows on their
faces. If you shoot against the sun, you'll have dark faces with little detail.
In other words, there is little chance of getting a good picture without some
external lighting in such a situation. In this case you can try reflecting sunlight
onto your subject. For example, if you shoot against the sun and have 2
people holding white sheets at both sides of the group in such a way that they
reflect sunlight onto the group, then you can get back some of the detail you'd
lose by shooting into the sun. Obviously, this is something you have to try out
before the actual shoot.

Again, thanks for your suggestions! I truly appreciate you taking the time to help! I'll make sure to post my result.

Amanda

Art Scott

Ahhhhh the giant family portrait......as for color....I'd prefer to see them Missiourians in TIE DIE....wild and colorful.....yes this might not be the style of family but would make for interesting shots.....AHEm......also would let everyone know...we're not moon runners...ahem ahem......


Seriously...any nice pastel colors aside from red and yellow...yellow is almost as bad as white....now if white is the choice I would recommend renting an incident light meter and then underexpose approximately 1/2stop.....an incident meter will get you a much more accurate light reading as it is metering the light falling oto the subject rather than being reflected off the subject......if it measures flash also that would be even better as you position your group in a large fully shaded area and use the flash to fill for eyes and such....do not let any wear hats....unless you ahe a studio lighting setup to use or a few assistants with relectors:D.......if you know anyone that has an incident meter you could borrow that would be great ot try renting from a local shop just do not tell them that you are taking out of state.........

Actually you could probably find one on ebay realatively inexpensively used for a decnt brand....Minolta....sekonic...gosen...polaris....one that does flash, incident and reflected light metering would be the best....good luck with this endeavor and do post final images so we may share in your success.................!!!!!

menebo

Couple other suggestions...
Just a few more, non-technical, suggestions. You could ask every family (within the family) to wear a different pastel color. That way they all look good together but you can tell who belongs to who. (If you really don't like the way it looks in the end then switch it to black and white and all the colors will look the same because they all have the same pastel tone.)

The other idea is to borrow one of Grandpa's ladders and stand on it when shooting the picture. That way you get a lot of nice grass as a back drop (looks like there is plenty!) and you get rid of a whole lot of double chins.

Just my two cents!

Michelle

argibson1

Art Scott wrote:

Ahhhhh the giant family portrait......as for color....I'd prefer to see them Missiourians in TIE DIE....wild and colorful.....yes this might not be the style of family but would make for interesting shots.....AHEm......also would let everyone know...we're not moon runners...ahem ahem......

HAHAHAHA!!!! Well I could ask about the tie dye but not sure I can win them over with that one! I do like the idea of the patels though. Since these will be the end of September maybe some lighter fall colors or something. Thanks for the idea!

Seriously...any nice pastel colors aside from red and yellow...yellow is almost as bad as white....now if white is the choice I would recommend renting an incident light meter and then underexpose approximately 1/2stop.....an incident meter will get you a much more accurate light reading as it is metering the light falling oto the subject rather than being reflected off the subject......if it measures flash also that would be even better as you position your group in a large fully shaded area and use the flash to fill for eyes and such....do not let any wear hats....unless you ahe a studio lighting setup to use or a few assistants with relectors:D.......if you know anyone that has an incident meter you could borrow that would be great ot try renting from a local shop just do not tell them that you are taking out of state.........

Actually you could probably find one on ebay realatively inexpensively used for a decnt brand....Minolta....sekonic...gosen...polaris....one that does flash, incident and reflected light metering would be the best....good luck with this endeavor and do post final images so we may share in your success.................!!!!!

This is a great suggestion as well. I have a friend who is also very much into photography and has a lot more toys than me!

Again, thanks for taking the time to give these great suggestions! All very helpful!

Amanda

argibson1

menebo wrote:

Just a few more, non-technical, suggestions. You could ask every family (within the family) to wear a different pastel color. That way they all look good together but you can tell who belongs to who. (If you really don't like the way it looks in the end then switch it to black and white and all the colors will look the same because they all have the same pastel tone.)

The other idea is to borrow one of Grandpa's ladders and stand on it when shooting the picture. That way you get a lot of nice grass as a back drop (looks like there is plenty!) and you get rid of a whole lot of double chins.

Just my two cents!

Michelle

OOOOOOO!!!!! I LOVE the idea of the different families wearing different colors! What a GREAT idea! I'm all over planning that today! I know that when I first started talking to the family about doing this they were very excited to have the photos done in digital and have the option of changing them to sepia or black and white as well. These are GREAT suggestions...and who wouldn't LOVE to get rid of double chins! HAHAHAHA!!!

Thanks again!
Amanda