Group lighting question

I was asked to shoot some family pictures at this church around 1pm ( Google Maps )

 

My available equipment is a Nikon D500, Nikon 17-55 2.8, Nikon 70-200 2.8, 2 Godox tt685n, 2 120cm octaboxes, some collapsible reflectors, and 2 stands that extend to 9'. What suggestions do you have for lighting groups of up to 12 with what I have? This will be my first time shooting inside with such high ceilings.

The suggestion that came up in a recent similar question was to ignore the flashes and just stand people outside, depending on the weather. Then you can put the church in the background and you don't have to worry about providing all the light yourself.

 

My limited experience trying to light a crowd with flashes is that it's tricky - the light just does fall off, and I've ended up putting a big exposure compensation adjustment layer with a gradient on it to try to sort out the mess (imperfectly); I've seen professionals have exactly the same problem. The nearer the group are to each other relative to the distance from the flash, the easier it's going to be to get vaguely even lighting (but the more power you'll need and the less effective your soft boxes will be). In other words, line them all up close together if you possibly can, then light and shoot from a distance. (Shooting from a distance because you'll have perspective squashing people at the edges with a wider lens, not because of lighting - although this limits how much church will be in your shot.)

 

That's something to chew on, but I'll shut up and let someone who actually knows how to do this properly tell me I've got it wrong. :-)

Depend where you are going to setup your shots. If it's a rather well lit place the see if the lighting looks good. If it does you can use the tripod and make the people hold still. People can hold still for 1 sec exposure without any problem.

Octaboxes don't require a ceiling or wall to bounce off, they'll give a soft and even light on their own. The only issue is having enough flash power to evenly cover the group.

 

The TT685 has a true GN of around 32 in metres @ 100 ISO. In softboxes they'll lose about 2 stops and need f/4 @ 4 metres, which is very doable for a small group. You can raise the ISO to 400 and use f/8. However the above is just a 'guesstimate', but shouldn't be too far off the mark.

 

The area by the main aisle door looks suitable for staging the groups. It has a low ceiling, which will help, and using a relatively slow shutter speed, say 1/30th, should show some ambient light.

 

Arranging the people in two rows of 6, or 3 rows of 4 should give a compact enough group to fit in that area. If you raise the lights as high as possible and cross-aim them; i.e. left light points at right side of group, and vice-versa, then the coverage should be even enough front-to-back and side-to-side.

 

Whatever you do, you need to test and practise the setup first. Getting access to the church before the event would be ideal, but any similar sized space will do to try out the lighting setup and exposure.

 

P.S. Do not rely on CLS control to get the flashes to fire. Just put them on full manual power and use radio triggers to fire them. CLS (AWL) isn't reliable with a flash in an octabox.

Edited May 2, 2018 by rodeo_joe|1

Thanks for the suggestions. I forgot to add I have a XproN controller. I am supposed to be able to get in to check it out the day before so that will help. There will be a few done outside which I have no problems doing, it's the inside ones they want I'm a little more nervous about as I'm usually able to just bounce a flash on lower ceilings but not everywhere here. I'm sure they will want a few by the front (is it called an alter?) Would you suggest still using the octaboxes up high and crossed like at the other spot or would I need more of the bare flash for more power?

The Altar area looks difficult. I'm pretty sure you could light a group of people there, but the background is too big for the flash to cover. You don't want the 'taken in a cave' look.

 

A possibility is to lengthen the shutter speed until the background registers, but then you've got the tricky job of balancing the flash and ambient. The ambient will add to the flash exposure, and be a different colour-temperature.

 

Adding warming gels to the flash could get the CTs closer. However that'll lose you some flash power and you'll still have to juggle aperture, flash output and shutter speed to get a reasonably natural looking shot.

 

Maybe just raising the ISO on your camera and shooting purely with ambient light will be a better option? Don't know without seeing the lighting levels.

 

It's not an easy trick to pull off 'on the fly'. A closer and smaller background area would definitely make the job easier.

 

How are your Photoshop skills?

If you shoot from a tripod, you could expose the background separately and with a different white balance. Then blend in the group on top of it in post. The BG doesn't even need to be in sharp focus, which would ease the blend.

 

"Would you suggest still using the octaboxes up high and crossed like at the other spot or would I need more of the bare flash for more power?"

 

- Concentrate on lighting the group's faces nicely. The Octaboxes should carry to a reasonably close background distance and diffuse enough to throw some bounce light on walls and ceiling. Purely bouncing will lose you a lot of light and be less controllable, while direct bare flash is a horrible light. Use the octaboxes, and just let the background go a bit dark if necessary. You'd need the lighting equipment and budget of a hollywood movie shoot to properly light a church that size!

Edited May 3, 2018 by rodeo_joe|1

Thanks, I really appreciate the help. I will put the suggestions to use and do the best I can on site, RAW and Photoshop will help with the rest.

Update.

Looks like my guesstimate was out by all of 1/3rd of a stop.

 

I set up a Godox V860 (same 'power' as a TT685 I believe) in a softbox-brolly. On full output I got an aperture of f/7.1 @ 4 metres and 400 ISO, with a useable amount of light over at least a further 2 metres beyond. Two such lights would easily cover a 12 person group.

 

This is the setup. I turned the power down to 1/64th for this shot, and as you can see, the flash easily equalled the brightness of the window behind it.

 

In short, I don't think you'll have any trouble lighting the group of people. The main issue will be matching the flash to ambient light, in both colour and intensity.

 

Good luck with the project!