Big Group Help Please
Jack D. Jinkins
shooting 645. 50mm lens or 80mm lens? In the gym in the stands or on
the football field with me in the stands? Lighting? Any other advice on
this project would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Jack Jinkins
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David Meiland
You've got a couple of choices.
1. Shoot in the gym. Bring enough flash power to completely overwhelm
the sickly color and top-angle of the gym lights. Bring enough glass
to cover any possible angle you might need. Hope for the best in terms
of a not-too-distracting background.
2. Shoot outdoors on the football field. Maybe you in the stands,
depending on what's across the way, but I would bring a stepladder and
position yourself to shoot along the length of the field. That way you
can put a goalpost in the background. Or maybe the school emblem is
painted on the stands in the background. If you're doing it soon, do
it after school and you'll have automatic late afternoon light. No
need for any flash unless you want it. You won't need more than a
normal lens because you'll be able to back off until everyone's in the
picture. I say stepladder because I think you should shoot from above.
Unless you have tiers for people to stand on, those in the back get
lost. The stands might help you if that's an issue.
Make sure you have film fast enough to handle available lighting and
the necessary shutter/aperture you'll be using. You should be able to
shoot stopped down maybe two stops at most, and maybe 1/125 of a
second will be fast enough to freeze everyone.
On a shoot like that I would have at least one assistant and possibly
two, to push people into place.
Best of luck!
---
David Meiland
Oakland, CA
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zeitgeist
"Jack D. Jinkins" wrote:
>
> I need to shoot 140 high school seniors in a group portrait. I'm
> shooting 645. 50mm lens or 80mm lens? In the gym in the stands or on
> the football field with me in the stands? Lighting? Any other advice on
> this project would be greatly appreciated.
seven rows of 20? concidering some won't show typically, you could have
five rows of 25. sounds about right.
I'd use the 80mm, less distortion, you don't want the kids in back to be
noticably smaller head sizes than the ones in front. I'd prefere the
gym, up on a ladder, do you are eye level to the kid in the middle. two
big mono heads up high on either side of the camera with umbrellas.
Magambo
High School graduations. The basic rules we followed was to shoot outside if
possible, generally on a sports field. Usually the school would work out
getting the students to stand in some sort of pattern - the number of the
graduating year,etc. We would generally shoot from the bleachers or one of us
would climb out on a roof. Try to shoot down on this - what you want to do is
get the people in the back and the peoiple in the front to be in the same plane
so that they are the same size on film. If this isn;t possible I would use the
tightest lens possible in the situation - ie 120mm from far away is better than
50mm close up.
Luke
Nicholas O. Lindan
>
> I need to shoot 140 high school seniors in a group portrait.
In addition to other recommendations:
Use a tripod, if shooting without overwhelming strobe power. If you are
up a ladder mount the camera to the ladder.
--
Nicholas O. Lindan, Cleveland, Ohio noli...@ix.netcom.com
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