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owen

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Owen
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Hi I have been asked by my sister to do a group photo of her Grandchildren 5 in total ranging from 1 year to 7 years, I will using my Nikon D5100 with 18-55mm lens and off camera flash which I intend to bounce. I have sot lots of single person portraits with this setup and I am very happy with what Ihave achieved, its going to be indoors just looking for any settings suggestions I normally use 55-300mm for single person head and shoulder portrait but realise not possible with 5 children and full body shots....

Thanks Owen
 
Can't really help with any detailed settings suggestions as they will depend on the light at the time of shooting etc. One tip with group shots I'd give though is to make sure the aperture isn't too wide open as you'll probably not get each of the faces in sharp focus. For 5 people I'd say try around f8 and see how that turns out and then adjust from there.

I don't think Nikon has the A-DEP (automatic depth of field) or smilar mode that Canon have but if they do then that might be worth a try too.

It seems you know what kit you'll be using so if you have a rough of idea of how far from the group you'll be then this might be worth a look too

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Good luck.
 
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Barks said:
Can't really help with any detailed settings suggestions as they will depend on the light at the time of shooting etc. One tip with group shots I'd give though is to make sure the aperture isn't too wide open as you'll probably not get each of the faces in sharp focus. For 5 people I'd say try around f8 and see how that turns out and then adjust from there.

I don't think Nikon has the A-DEP (automatic depth of field) or smilar mode that Canon have but if they do then that might be worth a try too.

It seems you know what kit you'll be using so if you have a rough of idea of how far from the group you'll be then this might be worth a look too

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

Good luck.
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Thanks I was thinking around f8 thats great..
 
Don't forget to take several shots! You will almost certainly get someone blinking, looking away etc. in some of the shots. Kids have short attentions spans so always have a plan to get them to look at the camera at the same time (not always as easy as you might think)
 
I can't remember where I heard or read it, but I saw a good tip for group photos. Might not work with such little ones though. Get everyone to close their, open them on the count of 3, give them a second for eyes to adjust then take the shot. I haven't actually tried it myself but it sounded like a good idea :-)
 
smudgie49 said:
Don't forget to take several shots! You will almost certainly get someone blinking, looking away etc. in some of the shots. Kids have short attentions spans so always have a plan to get them to look at the camera at the same time (not always as easy as you might think)
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Thanks Graham good idea one will set for multi exposure
 
milster said:
I can't remember where I heard or read it, but I saw a good tip for group photos. Might not work with such little ones though. Get everyone to close their, open them on the count of 3, give them a second for eyes to adjust then take the shot. I haven't actually tried it myself but it sounded like a good idea :-)
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Yeah I have read this somewhere to thanks very much
 
If you're posing your subjects, see if you can get them to stand in a reasonably straight line an equal distance from your camera. Gives you a better chance of getting everybody's eyes in focus. Seeing as you're using an external flash, you should get away with low iso (200) and F5.6 or F8 and try to get shutter speed of 1/125 or 1/250 to freeze movement (you probably need to use manual mode to achieve this).

No guarantees of course but hopefully these this is a good starting point.
 
gad-westy said:
If you're posing your subjects, see if you can get them to stand in a reasonably straight line an equal distance from your camera. Gives you a better chance of getting everybody's eyes in focus. Seeing as you're using an external flash, you should get away with low iso (200) and F5.6 or F8 and try to get shutter speed of 1/125 or 1/250 to freeze movement (you probably need to use manual mode to achieve this).

No guarantees of course but hopefully these this is a good starting point.
Click to expand...

Thanks Graham
 
Sound like you've got it sorted... just need a white ceiling now to bounce it!
 
smudgie49 said:
Don't forget to take several shots! You will almost certainly get someone blinking, looking away etc. in some of the shots. Kids have short attentions spans so always have a plan to get them to look at the camera at the same time (not always as easy as you might think)
Click to expand...

I have noticed that blinking is much more of a problem when using a mode which fires pre-flashes. I'm pretty sure that i-TTL and i-TTL BL both do pre-flashes so might be worth trying other modes like non TTL auto or manual.
 
gad-westy said:
If you're posing your subjects, see if you can get them to stand in a reasonably straight line an equal distance from your camera. Gives you a better chance of getting everybody's eyes in focus. Seeing as you're using an external flash, you should get away with low iso (200) and F5.6 or F8 and try to get shutter speed of 1/125 or 1/250 to freeze movement (you probably need to use manual mode to achieve this).

No guarantees of course but hopefully these this is a good starting point.
Click to expand...

A straight line parallel to the sensor*.. and if they're all in a line you can use a larger aperture which can help with shutter speed or ISO.



* you can't have a straight line equidistant from a point.. .. I'll get my coat :exit:
 
Alastair said:
A straight line parallel to the sensor*.. and if they're all in a line you can use a larger aperture which can help with shutter speed or ISO.



* you can't have a straight line equidistant from a point.. .. I'll get my coat :exit:
Click to expand...

:lol: Pedant!

My way was belt and braces. Seen far too many group shots where one or more members is falling OOF. They drive me mad!
 
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