Lighting a large group in sunny day in shade

<p>Hi Pros-<br>

I am doing a shoot this weekend for a Dance Group of about 50 kids. They will be posed on a gazebo that is shady but the background is full sunlight. This will be done at about 4pm in the afternoon so enough to blow out the back if I do not use some kind of lighting. I wanted to try maybe two 580EX with 60in Umbrellas on either side, do you think this will light the faces and still leave the background without blowing out? Any other lighting advice would be great. Thank you.</p>

<p>The best idea is to visit that location tomorrow (before the weekend) and test your theory, using yourself as a stand-in, putting your face in the center and the four corners of the area where the kids will be. Lights, self-timer, test!<br /><br />There are too many variables to answer the question decisively, otherwise (sun? clouds? available stand/umbrella distance/positions? etc). Don't forget sandbags with those big umbrellas acting as sails!</p>

 

<p>Use the fastest x-sync shutter speed your camera will allow and probably the lowest ISO you can. Add enough fill flash to match the background lighting. If it's a sunny afternoon around 4 pm with strong backlight at ISO 200 your shutter should be 1/200, f/16 or thereabouts. Set your flashes to output for the same f/stop you should be in good shape. If you have a flash meter this will be very easy. If not, put a few stand-ins on the platform ahead of time and shoot some tests and get it balanced. Do it ahead of time as the attention span of 50 kids of any kind is about 90 seconds. Your 580's may or may not put out enough power to keep the background from being blown out if using umbrellas so consider using a very light diffuser on direct flash instead. Especially with umbrellas keep them at the middle of each side, maybe four feet away from the camera. 50 kids should be easy enough either way. Good luck.</p>

<p>Rick H.</p>

<p>Full sunlight as in sun, sky, ocean, complete with glare, or full sunlight on a wall of dark green foliage? Makes a big difference.</p>

<p>If the former, your 2 580EXs stand a chance of giving enough power IF you <strong>don't</strong> use the umbrellas and place the lights close in. If the latter, go for the shade exposure--flash fill optional. This is assuming there are no parts of the kids in sunlight. Or just favor the shade exposure and let some of the flash fill carry the rest. The point is to expose the background just at the point before flaring out.</p>

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<p>I wanted to try maybe two 580EX with 60in Umbrellas on either side</p>

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<p>Place your umbrellas as close to one another and the camera-subject axis as possible so they work together as one double-wide light source. This will help you avoid unsightly crossed shadows cast by the front row on those behind.<br>

Set your camera's exposure settings to the ambient light striking the group and your total flash output to one stop less. In other words, if you're shooting at f/8 and 1/125th, your lights together should meter to f/5.6.</p>

<p>Henry Posner<br /><strong>B&H Photo-Video</strong></p>

<p>If you were only taking a picture of 5 or 6 kids then maybe but 50? no way jose. Number one the flash going into a 60 inch umbrella will eat up most of you power that you will need. Ideally you need two 600 wat battery packs or one 1200 for your senario. If that is not possible then ditch the umbrellas and go direct with your flashes as full power and see where the exposure falls. speed up your shutter as fast as you can go to get the background to the way you want it. The exposure on the kids will be 100% flash by the way. good luck let us now how you did.</p>

<p>Agree. Fifty people lit evenly with 2 Speedlights? No chance.<br>

If you can get good natural light on them I would just go with that and let the BG blow out.</p>

 

<p>Thank you everyone for you advice. My shoot went great due to your responses. So what I did was I rented the Profoto D1 500w kit with 34" umbrellas, I set them up on both sides of the camera and had an equal amount coming from both sides. thank you for all your help.<img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa207/jkvphotography/jkv%20photography/tdc-9036.jpg" alt="" /></p>

<p>So shoot me--the background is exactly what I was talking about above--dark green shaded foliage (mostly) rather than brightly lit, already light colored material. With this, I think you could have gone with two 580EXs into a single 60" umbrella at ISO 400 or even 800 at around f6.3. The green background would have been light, pleasant green and the photo itself would not have been as 'flashy'.</p>

<p>The photo you have is fine though. One of the problems with big white umbrellas is big, white glasses reflections. I always have to remind myself to look for all the glasses before pressing the shutter button. Worse on littler faces too.</p>

<p>I'll shoot you Nadine..lol. Jacqui you did the right thing and great job!!! What my friend Nadine is over looking is depth of field on a shot like this and at f-22 at iso 250 you can't get that out of speed lights. One can argue wide angles don't need to be closed down ect. But when you are doing the money shots and at high level of work you need to have the depth and you need to shoot at a relative low iso for maximum file quality. All camera's have a native iso and anything shot other than that is just adding what video guys call "gain" The are many ways to skin the cat but you did it the way I would call professional. One last observation even though the trees in the middle background were in relative shade you still had the raw sun light in the left and right of the frame and by closing down to 22 at iso 250 you had complete control over that light. Great job!!!!</p>

<p>oh one other thing next time you can play with the shutter speed and slow it down a bit the balance the flash from the background ambient. It will look not so flashed as we say. and will soften the look as well. In other words make your background a little brighter.</p>

<p>Thank you both for your comments, I was really happy with the result, and I was really afraid to raise my ISO. At the most I would have done 400 but I think at 800 it would not have been the result I wanted with the sharpness in the faces, too much grain. I have had problems with that in the past. Here is the picture from last years shoot. I used two continuous lighting 24 x24 Soft boxes but they were not bright enough to keep me from blowing out the background. Here is last years picture, but I have photoshopped all the parts I did not like in the picture. I had to do a lot of smoothing. I wish I had the original file but I lost it in an external drive crash. Lesson learned. Let me know what you think, and which picture you like better.<img src="http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa207/jkvphotography/jkv%20photography/TeamPixwkris.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="819" /></p>

<p>I'll accept the shot, but still say DOF to cover the depth of the group is workable at f6.3. If a full frame, there is 11 feet of DOF at a 6 foot subject distance at 24mm. If a cropped sensor camera, there is 21 feet at 17mm. I'm just guessing at focal lengths and subject distances.</p>

<p>I certainly understand the decision to rent the more powerful lights and be safe. However, I would still have favored the background more, and the shot could have been pulled off with the lesser gear. Whether it was smarter to do so or not is another question and a choice for the photographer.</p>

<p>I actually like the background of the second picture. That is what i was talking about with balancing the flash of course i know you did not use flash on this one. Just play with your shutter next time.</p>

<p>I do agree that I could use a little more light in the background but I do like the blue sky as in the second one it was completely gone. Plus keep in mind the second one is completely Photoshopped. I think I raised the exposure post production to see the faces and ended up losing the background completely. I added more green bushes and grass to make it look less blown, plus removed a few things from the scene. I have not done anything to the first one yet. Thank you again your posts really help in my learning process.</p>

<p>"but still say DOF to cover the depth of the group is workable at f6.3", I kind of agree, and with that tonal range in the background, 1/250th would have been plenty at that aperture. But truthfully, I'd have pulled out the Lumedynes for this, and been less nervous at F9. <br /><br />As for the aesthetics, I'd split the difference between the two images you've posted. The first one looks like it was made in a thunderstorm ( and the dark hair of the people in back is sort of melding into the trees... ), and the second background is a little over-saturated to be behind a bunch of kids dressed in black. <br /><br />On an even lighter note ( lighter, because you did this job just fine, and we are nitpicking/second guessing ), is that a Voice Activated Lightstand at back left, outside the gazebo? Holding a softbox that didn't fire? Hilarious (I've been that guy)... t</p><div></div>