Presentation photo help

[Kev M]

Evening all, I'm after some help if you'd be so kind. Lucky old me has been roped in to take some presentation photos at the works dinner on Saturday (the venue is Alnwick Gardens Pavillion if anyone has ever been there.

As usual I'm succesfully confusing ambition with ability and refuse to do anything simple so I asked to have a look around the place before the event so I could get some ideas. Inside is horrible, magnolia walls or bare brick in one direction and glass walls in the other, not pretty glass either but plastered with big dots to stop idiots and the partially sighted from walking into them, horrible reflections that can't be heped with a polarizer. There's no ceiling for bouncing the flash either it's all angles, not a flat bit in sight. Outside there's a terrace with this very cool starlight type thing in the floor. I took a lot of photos tonight and thought I was getting somewhere but now I'm back home I realise I really didn't get as much figured out as I should have done.

Lens wise there's the kit lens:thumbsdown: 50mm 1.7 or a 24mm 2.8.

Outside there's an arch with an intricate gate across it. It helps disguise the background but the 50mm prefers to focus on the gate or the background rather than the subject.

50mm 1/25 ISO 200 F1.7 Silver brolly with SB25 to the left

I tried a shot without the gate but check out the crappy background.

50mm 1/25 ISO 200 F1.7 Silver brolly with SB25 to the left

Then I tried shooting with the crappy background behind me. The arch would have been nice but the floor is not lit in front of it from this direction so I shot further back. Now the 50mm won't focus on the subject for some reason, I swap to the 24mm and it hits focus every time.

By this time people were getting a bit tired of the waiting so I knocked it on the head.

So, here's the questions I have.

1)Is the last shot the best one with respect to the setting?

2)In the last one are the lights across the middle too distracting? I think the only way to get rid of them is to position the subjects under them which will give me problems with reflections on the pictures being presented.

3) is 24mm (36mm) too wide for a full length portrait?

4) would the picture work better cropped tight, feet at the bottom of the frame with the lights behind or with space at the bottom with the lights below the feet?

5) Any other ideas, this is the first time I've done this and I'm putting myself under a lot of presure to produce something better than what they're expecting.

 

[Alex S]

Can you use photoshop to help? Perhaps shoot the arch with the crappy background behind you and then blend in the spot-lit floor taken from another photograph?

I do like the last photo and perhaps it would look less fussy if you cropped it to fall inside of the two columns. I only have experience of editing in Elements 5 but it does give you an option to keep the original photos proportions when cropping, which would keep the composition.

Good luck whatever you decide, sounds like a fun but challenging project.

 

[W.Smith]

@1:
Avoid the setting playing a part in the image AMAP: tight crops, shallow DoF, off-cam flash with bounce card.

@2:
ignore the pinhole lights. They're there. With shallow DoF you get 'm out of focus which may actually add to the atmosphere.

@3:
Yes. Wide-angle distorts. That's not flattering to faces or bodies. That's why portrait lenses start from 85mm upwards: short to medium tele. Get one. You need one for close-ups and shallow DoF anyway. Pay attention that the max. aperture is F3.5 or better or you won't get shallow DoF.

@4:
with shallow DoF they're much less of a problem in any composition.

@5:
practice, practice, practice, do testruns, bring spare gear for the worst case scenario: cam, flashgun and memory cards, bring fully charged and tested batteries. And a spare set of those too. Also fully charged and tested of course.
And bring a mule to carry it all.
Shoot RAW if you can, and as many exposures as you can.

Have fun!

 

[Kev M]

Can you use photoshop to help? Perhaps shoot the arch with the crappy background behind you and then blend in the spot-lit floor taken from another photograph?
.

cheers Alex, I'm trying to get away from spending too much time in photoshop so getting it right first time, in-camera is important to me. Cheers.

@1:
Avoid the setting playing a part in the image AMAP: tight crops, shallow DoF, off-cam flash with bounce card.

@2:
ignore the pinhole lights. They're there. With shallow DoF you get 'm out of focus which may actually add to the atmosphere.

@3:
Yes. Wide-angle distorts. That's not flattering to faces or bodies. That's why portrait lenses start from 85mm upwards: short to medium tele. Get one. You need one for close-ups and shallow DoF anyway. Pay attention that the max. aperture is F3.5 or better or you won't get shallow DoF.

@4:
with shallow DoF they're much less of a problem in any composition.

@5:
practice, practice, practice, do testruns, bring spare gear for the worst case scenario: cam, flashgun and memory cards, bring fully charged and tested batteries. And a spare set of those too. Also fully charged and tested of course.
And bring a mule to carry it all.
Shoot RAW if you can, and as many exposures as you can.

Have fun!

Cheers for the inputWS. The setting is important to me, if it wasn't I'd be doing them inside the pavillion against the magnolia walls and I'd like the pin lights to add to the photo I just can't decide where to put them.

I thought 24mm might be a bit wide but wasn't sure if I'd get away with it for full length portraits or not. I've got a 28-105 2.8-4 as well as the 50mm but neither of them like focusing in low light and quite often miss the focus point. Might have to find a way of working around the focusing issue somehow.

Unfortunately I might not be able to do another test run until on the night,we'll see though. Thanks again for the advice.

 

[W.Smith]

I thought 24mm might be a bit wide but wasn't sure if I'd get away with it for full length portraits or not.

Avoid wide angle. They make people look bad.

I've got a 28-105 2.8-4 as well as the 50mm but neither of them like focusing in low light and quite often miss the focus point. Might have to find a way of working around the focusing issue somehow.

Try manual focus.
And you can do a testrun with that: like right now! No need to wait until Saturday to test if you can get sharp photos doing manual focus and flash. Do it now. Make mistakes. Learn. And correct for them. So that Saturday you come prepared and somewhat more confident.

Good luck!

 

[Kev M]

I wouldn't trust my eyesite, with manual focus in dark. You can barely see the subjects through the viewfinder as it is.. I think I might take a tripod and cable release. That way I can hold a torch to help the AF and it might work for a change.

 

[W.Smith]

I wouldn't trust my eyesite, with manual focus in dark. You can barely see the subjects through the viewfinder as it is..

You haven't even tried it yet and already dismiss it?
How do you think photogs focused in the previous century and a half? Good old educated guesswork, that's how! And it served them well.

Try it! You may be pleasantly surprised. And add yet another skill to your set that others don't have.

 

[mmcp42]

make sure you use spot focussing
aim at the face (eyes)
half press the shutter to set the focus
compose
fire

with only one person it's easy as the face tends to be where you point anyway
with two you neatly hit the background between!

unless you get them to "touch faces"
looks good
makes 'em smile
hides the background

(thanks CJ - see I was listening!)

 

[Kev M]

make sure you use spot focussing
aim at the face (eyes)
half press the shutter to set the focus
compose
fire

You make it sound so simple.


Problem being the area is so dark the camera doesn't detect any features on the face in which it can focus. I have to aim slightly to the edge of the face to get enough contrast to focus and that's when I get hit and miss.

 

[kungfukid]

I'm kinda in the same boat as you. I'm doing a dinner dance this weekend but I have decided to bring a backdrop and work indoors, this is so I can get some SAFE shots. once I have them I will experiment with more arty setups and exposures.

Good luck with the shoot!

 

[mmcp42]

You make it sound so simple.


Problem being the area is so dark the camera doesn't detect any features on the face in which it can focus. I have to aim slightly to the edge of the face to get enough contrast to focus and that's when I get hit and miss.

if it's too dark to focus manually, can you
a) get some light just for focussing
b) pace it out!!!
c) try a few beforehand and get everyone to stand on the chalk cross

btw what camera do you have?
400D claims to "shine a light" if it needs to to help focussing?!?