Small group lighting.

[The23rdman]

I'm doing a favour for my wife's employers tomorrow and taking a series of small group shots for their brochure. It'll be good exposure for me and it's a charity that does great local work for old people so I don't mind the freebie.

I've never taken any group shots with lights before so thought I'd run through my thoughts.

They'll be groups of three. It's up to me if they're headshots or full length. Mmmm, don't really know how to play this. Any ideas?

I'm pretty sure the room is reasonably sized with neutral walls so nothing complicated needed there.

It's set-up of key and fill I'm troubled by. Seeing as it's a group of three rather than single person I was kind or thinking I'd use my biggest light source (43" umbrella softy) as an on axis fill then set-up a simple 45* 40" shoot-through as key. Hopefully that'll provide enough even light, but with a little sculpting from the key?

Any thoughts guys?

 

[Kaouthia]

I don't see why that wouldn't work, but do some tests to figure out the right distance for your key if it's off to the side.

The further away your light source is from the subjects, the difference between the light on the subject closest and furthest away from it decreases. However the further away from your subject the light source, the relative size of the light source decreases too, so it will become slightly harder.

I would probably only go for top-half shots, shooting your camera horizontally, not full length, otherwise again you could be facing light fall-off issues on the lower half of the images.

The main problem I could see with using an on-axis fill light is if you have people wearing glasses. You can ask them to remove them, but you may be touching up a lot of red marks and indentations on noses and under eyes in post (and a lot of people just look wrong without glasses on as they strain to try to focus on you and your camera, heh). What you could do is have both of your lights at 45 degrees, about 8ft away, from slightly above, and then you shouldn't have to worry about any reflections in glasses.

 

[Garry Edwards]

Personally I'd avoid full length in this situation, headshots or waist-up will be much easier.

Yes, you can have one flash head each side, it will work well enough but will give everyone a fat face.

It might be much better, if you have the height, to have your key light high and central, which will produce a modelling effect that you won't get with a light each side, and then use your shoot through umrella as an on-axis fill, probably only producing minimal fill.

 

[The23rdman]

I don't see why that wouldn't work, but do some tests to figure out the right distance for your key if it's off to the side.

The further away your light source is from the subjects, the difference between the light on the subject closest and furthest away from it decreases. However the further away from your subject the light source, the relative size of the light source decreases too, so it will become slightly harder.

I would probably only go for top-half shots, shooting your camera horizontally, not full length, otherwise again you could be facing light fall-off issues on the lower half of the images.

The main problem I could see with using an on-axis fill light is if you have people wearing glasses. You can ask them to remove them, but you may be touching up a lot of red marks and indentations on noses and under eyes in post (and a lot of people just look wrong without glasses on as they strain to try to focus on you and your camera, heh). What you could do is have both of your lights at 45 degrees, about 8ft away, from slightly above, and then you shouldn't have to worry about any reflections in glasses.

Glasses was something I was concerned about, yes. Thanks mate.

Personally I'd avoid full length in this situation, headshots or waist-up will be much easier.

Yes, you can have one flash head each side, it will work well enough but will give everyone a fat face.

It might be much better, if you have the height, to have your key light high and central, which will produce a modelling effect that you won't get with a light each side, and then use your shoot through umrella as an on-axis fill, probably only producing minimal fill.

This set-up was my original preferred option, but I've no idea how tall the room is and how far apart I'd be spacing the groups and didn't want to produce uneven light with fall off.

Also how will this set-up cope with glasses?

 

[Garry Edwards]

Glasses was something I was concerned about, yes. Thanks mate.



This set-up was my original preferred option, but I've no idea how tall the room is and how far apart I'd be spacing the groups and didn't want to produce uneven light with fall off.
Also how will this set-up cope with glasses?[/QUOTE]
1. You don't need to worry about uneven light - some fall off is inevitable but this is what creates the modelling in the first place, it needs to be controlled, not avoided.
2. As for glasses, remember that the angle of reflectance = the angle of incidence. In practice, if the light is frontal and from above then the reflections will be directed harmlessly to a point near the floor, not towards the camera (assuming that the people are looking towards the camera). The on-axis fill could create a problem in this direction but then you may not need to have it anyway, and even if you do then you could always move it to one side to get rid of the potential specular reflection problem (although it would not then be a true fill, but will still probably look fine).

 

[The23rdman]

True. Good points, Garry. Thanks.

Thanks again to both of you. I feel more confident now.