 Doug Hornung |
Family Group Portrait Hello everyone, here is another one of those "I've been asked to..." questions! I have been asked to do a family portrait of approximately 20 people indoors. Any tips or help that I can get would be very much appreciated. I will be using my Canon 1V HS with a 28-200 f/4.5 lens. I have rented two 800-watt studio lights and umbrellas. I also have a 20x10 muslin backdrop. My biggest concern is, of course, proper lighting. My experience with studio lights is extremely limited. I will hopefully get them the day before the shoot and work with them a bit before doing the sitting. Any advice on how I can achieve the best results would be very much appreciated. The shoot is this Saturday coming up. Thanks in advance.
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Mark Feldstein |
The trick in these deals is to usually balance the lighting. For that, you ought to have a flash meter. 20 people isn't really a big number. So, if you really want to use your muslin, hang that first in a place where you can get people 6-8 feet in front of it. (Closer may produce some harsh shadows). Then throw some masking tape down on the floor to mark where you plan to position people (standing and/or sitting). Rig your lights, one at a time, measuring the output in various parts of 1/2 of the area you marked out. Then set the second light to work at the same f-stop and distance as the other. You can leave X marks for the stands and try and recall the height your lamp heads are set at. BTW, you don't want that lens set at less than 35mm. 50-100 would be better if you can get the distance and depth of field you need to the subjects. 28mm, forget it ... it's going to distort at the sides of the frame. Then Saturday, set it up, remeasure the lighting to get the proper f-stop to work at the depth of field you want and rock and roll. Piece of cake ... yes?
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Doug Hornung |
Thanks, Mark, for the great advice. I guess I forgot to mention that I have a sekonic light meter and will be using it. With the space I have, I should be able to set the lens near 100mm. I was thinking of using a aperature of approx f/8. If I understand you correctly, I should then adjust the light output so that my light meter reads f/8 for a proper exposure across the entire area using both lights? Thanks again!
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Mark Feldstein |
Well, f8.0 at 100mm should give you adequate depth of field. So, in that sense, if you've got people stacked, say, 2 deep, the folks in the front and back should be in focus. All you need to check with your meter is that all the zones, say you divide the space in front of the backdrop into four of them, should be getting about the same amount of light, whether it's f8.0, f 8.5 or f 11, or even 5.6 (which is pushing the depth of field envelope a bit). And, you also want to make sure with your meter that you don't have any dead spots that aren't getting any light. Umbrellas can be tricky that way. BTW, set your umbrella on the flash head using the modeling light. (This may be old hat to you) but when the umbrella is at the proper distance from the flash head, you should just begin to see shadow from the modeling light falling on the inside edge of the umbrella with adequate illumination toward the inside or center. In other words, if you push the umbrella too far towards the lamphead you won't be getting sufficient light output from the rig and the illumination it provides will be uneven. That's a common mistake people make using umbrellas which are otherwise nice modifiers. Some lights, for example my Bowens monolights, have what's called a "spill-kill" reflector that fits around the lamp head before you insert the umbrella. That reflector helps keep the light inside the umbrella to allow it to do it's job. Seewhatimean? Take it light. Mark
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