 BetterPhoto Member |
Taking sports portraits I was recently approached about taking posed photographs for 250 baseball players. I would be taking them in the morning and will be taking individual shots as well as group shots. I am worried that I do not have the right equipment to take the group shot. Would you reccomend a wide angle lense or would an 18-55mm lense work?
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Danielle E. Rutter |
Tricia - I can't say I know a whole lot about it. I imagine that if you can get far enough away then an 18-55mm would be fine. The trickier thing is going to be making sure all of the players are visible. My advice is to make sure you leave some space on the sides. Since proportions can be tricky... if anybody wants an 8x10 then if there's no space to cut off on the sides then it won't able to be printed at this size. You may very well already know this but seeing as I just made this mistake I thought I'd pass along the wealth. :)
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Justin S. |
I would definatly not take the grops photo with a wide angle. If you do You will wind up with somthing called perspective distortion which looks quite horrible. What do you have in your bag of goodies along the lines of telephoto?
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Mark Feldstein |
You're shooting portraits, individual and group. So, not only should you avoid the wide angle with groups, but also with individuals for the same reason Justin mentioned. An 18-55 probably won't do well since you need to fix the focus at somewhere around 55 and avoid the temptation to zoom out to accommodate the framing of the group. In addition, it's too wide for portraits unless you're practically right in front of the subject. For portraits with 35mm format, try either a 105 or 135 fixed focus lens. If you haven't got one, rent one. Fixed focus is preferable to zooms because they distort less, particularly around the edges and when working at wider f-stops. Your lighting will need to be adequate too. An on-camera flash is insufficient for both types of work unless you're shooting groups of two and working pretty close to them. Since I assume you'll be working in daylight, you need a couple of fill flash units that will give you sufficient shadow detail or altogether illuminate them. You can probably rent portable lighting equipment, like a couple of Quantum T-2s or T-4s along with battery packs that will easily carry you for 250 shots, light stands, modifiers and a flash meter.
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