Please help with tricky lighting situation!

philthejuggler

philthejuggler

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Hi all

As resident photographer I've been asked to take a photo at work to celebrate our 20 years in business.

It is planned to be taken in our lobby (photo below) which I've always thought of as light and airy, but in practice it is not very light and only the rear section is airy (as this has the spiral staircase up to the second floor emanating from it).

I have lots of studio guns - how do I got about arranging them to make sure everyone (about 30 people) are well lit?

I could glance some off the ceiling I guess, but it isn't very high! Do I need to light the back differently as there is a higher ceiling and potentially some light coming in through the rear glass window?

I'll be standing in much the same position as I was in the shot below with a 21mm lens on FF!

Thanks in anticipation!

Phil

p1840830308-5.jpg
 
Would it not be easier to do it outside? Why make life harder than it needs to be?
 
Tunbridge said:
Would it not be easier to do it outside? Why make life harder than it needs to be?
Click to expand...

Possible, but the outside isn't very attractive.
 
Easy, with that amount of white wall, you can just bounce some decent quantity of light about to evenly light everybody. Preferably back into the walls rather then the ceiling to front light rather than top light.

Two rows of fifteen, probably informally scattered so it doesn't look too much like a football team photo. Some sat on arms of chairs to vary the head height. Lose the 21 mm, unless you want to wacky weird look (which might actually suit the type of photo). Mind your aperture to hold focus.

How formal do you/they want it? If not very, you can get people sat on the floor which means you need less width (and can use a longer lens) but more power as you again need to hold aperture.

More info for big groups in my post at:

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=5613187&postcount=22
 
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Kris said:
Easy, with that amount of white wall, you can just bounce some decent quantity of light about to evenly light everybody. Preferably back into the walls rather then the ceiling to front light rather than top light.

Two rows of fifteen, probably informally scattered so it doesn't look too much like a football team photo. Some sat on arms of chairs to vary the head height. Lose the 21 mm, unless you want to wacky weird look (which might actually suit the type of photo). Mind your aperture to hold focus.

How formal do you/they want it? If not very, you can get people sat on the floor which means you need less width (and can use a longer lens) but more power as you again need to hold aperture.

More info for big groups in my post at:

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=5613187&postcount=22
Click to expand...


Fantastic advice - many thanks - I'll do exactly that!

Phil
 
On a spiral?

Few more tips off the top of my head and looking at the piccy:
  • Now is the time to get a proper logo/nameplate on that left wall and light it to make a bg feature.
  • Lose the pot plants, or somebody is going to look like sideshow bob.
  • Turn off the flying saucer lights in the ceiling.
  • Think about priority seating, if the boss wants to be 'the boss', front and centre.
  • Two reversed lights, left and right, at least 500ws to give you f8/f11 min.
  • A fill off the ceiling wouldn't go amiss from behind cam, but flag the front of the light so no direct light hits the faces.
  • Camera firmly anchored to a high tripod to focus the groups attention and to make PS head swaps much easier - you're going to need it with 30 people.
 
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Nice idea on the spiral, but ended up with some on stools and others standing across the middle of the area. The bosses sat on the reception desk.

All worked quite well, although I couldn't quite get the lighting right on the background - slightly darker than I'd have ideally liked.

Anyhow, the company are happy with it!

Phil
 
Glad to hear it went well.

Dark BGs are caused because of an imbalance between your light (assuming you used any) and available ambient, either from the sun externally through the windows or the installed lighting which is usually fluorescent.

The problem you face is that you need a fairly fast shutter speed to freeze the subjects (maybe minimum of a 1/30th) and bleed a little ambient, while also needing an aperture that will hold font to back focus (perhaps f8 on aps-c or f11 on my full-frame).

1/30th @ f8 iso 100 is always going to be fairly dark indoors that far from a window and with typical office lighting. To get it in one shot the only thing you can really do is raise your iso (and correspondingly lower your own lighting equipment) to more closely match the ambient.

You could light the background yourself or wait for a bright ambient, such as a beam of sunlight coming through the windows at back. You could even create you own 'beam of sunlight' with a very powerful cto'd light high on a stand outside. I've done this before now and it can 'brighten' the atmosphere of the image, which is what some companies want.

You could also multi expsoure it I guess, and blend the various images carefully in PS for a more balanced look. This requires the camera to remain in the same position throughout, such as on a very firm tripod.
 
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