 Manny Valencia |
Group Shots with People in Front and Back How do I take a picture of a group of, say, 4 or 5 people where you have a person in the front and the rest are behind but at different depths? I hope the question makes sense, but, the best description I could give is you sometimes see it on album covers where the band is somewhat layered in the shot. What makes this shot work (aperture, zoom lens, depth of field)? Where would one start? I have a Canon 40d with the 28-135mm, a 50mm f1.8, the 75-300mm zoom and a 18-55mm wide angle.
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- Carlton Ward Contact Carlton Ward Carlton Ward's Gallery |
Hello Manny, You will want to use a deeper DOF like f/16 or preferably f/22 but how much detail will also depend on your lens characteristics and where your focal point is. This will also make for a slower shutter speed so you may have to bump your ISO up a bit. Hope this helps!
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Manny Valencia |
Thanks, Carlton. So would I be better off getting up close with a wide angle or further back and zooming in? Should I focus on the person in the front or the middle? If you have ever seen the cover of U2's album The Joshua Tree, that is kind of what I am trying to do. Hope that makes sense of what I am striving for. Thanks again.
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- Carlton Ward Contact Carlton Ward Carlton Ward's Gallery |
Hi Manny, I would try the wide angle. I am not familiar with the U2 album cover, although I know some of the songs from that one. Cheers, Carlton
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Dan W. Dooley |
The 50mm lens might be a good choice. In theory the zooms would allow for a wider angle but they might not be as sharp as the prime. Besides, going too wide can contribute to distortion around the edges which might be a little distracting. You will need a larger aperture number as has already been suggested. Remember, the longer the focal length, for a given aperture, the DOF will be narrower so shoot with a shorter focal length and go with a higher f number. Going too high though can reverse your intent and soften the image due to diffraction. Try up to f/22 at max. Also a tripod would be a good idea.
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Michael D. Miller |
Hi Manny, In addition to the above (the other photograhers), if you can use a tripod if the group is pretty stable or posing for you, or use a monopod if the group is more active and you can bring in monopod. These will help if you have to go down on your shutter speed to achieve the f16-22, or even as low as f11, as your needed aperature. Set your camera for Aperture priority (this does not negate using manual, hopefully without lights showing in the frame or even an incident light meter-I just ordered the Sekonic L-758DR), say at f16, and check your shutter speed. Jack up your ISO, as mentioned above, until you can get a ,reasonable*' shutter speed. Canon handles noise and higher ISO's very well. If you have to use an ISO, say of 1600 or 3200 or higher where the noise may be getting up there, and you are using f16, it may be that there is just 'not' enough light. Then you may get into a fill flash situation which is another story, but extremely useful. The tripod or monopod will help eliminate the photographer shake at the lower shutter speeds. TESTING: Lastly, due to digital, you can test all of this before you take your more important pictures. Set up some objects in a room of yours, like a living room or full basement. Put enough lights on to simulate your group shooting (we're not going to discuss color balancing here-your house lighting could be less than your groups' locations), and move your objects around to an approximate layering of your choice. From a similar shooting position, start with an ISO of 400, aperture priority, your 18-55** at 18mm (your effecive 30.6mm** on your camera), f22 if you have it (otherwise f16), and check your shutter speed. Depending on how steady you are without a mono/tri pod, and if your group is not moving around or you are posing them, you won't want to go below * 1/60 sec. If your subjects are subject to moving regularly then maybe you don't want to go below * 1/125 sec (both of these settings could be higher, we don't know yet). * shutter speeds will depend on their movement AND your movement.
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Michael D. Miller |
Hi Manny, Forgot. Your focus point for max depth of field (DOF) is about 1/3 into the frame. Again you have to test these settings. You can even run a test as to how shaky you are. Go out in daylight, put the sun somewhere off your left or right shoulder (be careful not to burn your hand), set your camera for shutter priority, your ISO around 200 for good quality (also I always shoot RAW, but if you are using JPG, set it for its highest filesize and quality. In Nikon it's called Large/Fine. Then take a non-moving object that has lines and texture that you can see and judge, and start off at, say, 1/1000 sec and keep shooting the same object, going down one click on your shutter speed, at a time. After you get down to about 1 full second, stop and view your pictures. See exactly where you start to see a softness/unsharpness over the entire picture. There are some caveats such as your sweet spots are around f5.6-f8 and as you change shutter speeds your camera changes its f stops, so the 1/1000 is using a not-so-great (NSG) f stop, and the 1/10 sec or slower may also be using a NSG f stop. Anyway, all this testing is all fun.
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Bruce A. Dart |
Manny, Lots of good info here as usual. In addition, for portraiture we try to arrange people on the same plane. That is, somewhat of a semicircle so that they appear to be behind one another but in reality they are closer to being the same distance away from the lens. For sake of argument, if you took a string from the lens to your subjects and kept them all the same distance away, you would find that the arrangement is somewhat of a semicircle and the perspective rendered will make them all look closer to the same size. Arranging a group from front to back, you will have them in sharp focus but they may appear smaller in size. Best wishes Bruce
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- Carlton Ward Contact Carlton Ward Carlton Ward's Gallery |
http://www.ferhiga.com/progre/portadas/pink-floyd-ummagumma.jpg Pretty cool :)
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