Which lens for an indoor group portrait low light 20D

[k szafran]

I'm a beginner photographer with a good eye, expensive toys, but very little

knowledge. I know I need a good class, but right now I need suggestions as to

which lens to use to shoot an indoor low light school portrait.

 

There will be about 35 students/staff in the picture - taken indoors, low

light.

 

I'll be using a tripod & shooting with a 20D & 550ex flash.

 

I have the following lenses to choose from:

 

canon: 85mm 1.8

 

canon: 70-200 f/2.8

 

canon: 50mm 1.8 metal mount

 

canon: 17-85 EF-S IS

 

Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated!

 

Thank you.

[zacker]

I would try the 17-85 and the 85 myself... unless you got the room to use the 70-200...

low light huh? thats gonna be tuff enough!

-zacker-

[ben_kriete]

If you use anything but the 17-85 to shoot 35 people you'll be standing *way* back. I'd suggest setting up your tripod and flash before the actual shoot, guesstimating how much space the people will take up, and figure out what focal length you'll need and how far back you can stand. You'll probably want to experiment as much as you can with the flash and camera settings to determine what works best *without* 35 people getting antsy. Don't forget you'll also want to stop down to f8 or so to get adequate depth of field. You will also want to take a lot of pictures - it's hard enough to get four or five people to look at the camera and smile at the same time without blinking, squinting, or grimacing. Also consider shooting RAW+JPG since you'll have better flexibility in adjusting color balance.<br><br>You may want to consider taking the picture outdoors if at all possible and using your 550 for fill-flash. You'll probably get better results with more light.

[jcs56]

Hi:

 

If I shot a indor group with flash I will chosse the 17-85 mm. But you will nead to consider the flash coverage... those are 35 persons in the frame, this will probably a limitation for the flash.

 

Check if you can use a window or artificial ligth.. this may help, do test shots before the group is ready.

 

The other alternative is the 50mm, this one work very fine with low ligth. You may check if you can cover all the group with this lense..

 

You may consider the (F) number and the distances to have a sharp shot. If you can use a tripod you will be fine with 1/60 seconds or more for the exposition.

 

Regards

[k szafran]

Thanks for all your input - I've been really happy with the 17-85 so far - It lets in lots of light, handheld, indoors w/no flash, but often isn't as sharp as I would like - (and I don't want to depend too heavily on unsharp mask) Do you think the tripod will help with a sharper image?

[jim_larson1]

Yes, I suspect the final shot will be in the 24-35mm range. And you will want to shoot at F8.

 

Now, having said that you want to shoot at F8, you need to keep the shutter at 1/60th or higher to avoid blur due to subject movement.

 

(use M mode)

 

As to ISO - > Use ISO 400 or even 800 to maximize available light.

 

As to the flash: Ah. . .that may be a problem. It may not cover well enough. Try experimenting to see if it will provide enough light when bounced. (you *DEFINATLY* want to bounce the flash).

 

Worst case scenario: Go to home depot and buy some lights! Aim those lights at the ceiling! (sort of a do-it-yourself studio).

 

A more expensive option would be to add flash units in a master/slave setup to get better light coverage.

[charles_fremont]

I suggest that you do all you can to get to the site ahead of time -- even a day

in advance if possible -- to plan how you are going to arrange the students

and what lens will frame them best. Bring a few students with you if possible.

I'm guessing the 50mm might be perfect, and you know it will be sharp. You

might need to resort to the 17-85 if you can't back up enough for the 50 to

cover all the students. If you do have lots of room to back up, also try the 85

1.8, which might give a more pleasing result against the background. you may

need to extend the tripod up high and stand on a chair to see everybody. If

time permits experiment to determine the best ISO for the shot. Consider

bracketing. Certainly consider taking the shot without the flash as well as with

it. You might get a much more pleasing result -- but you'll need at least 1/30

sec. and kids not moving around. Once you get a good result take several

shots and pick the best one later. Good luck!

[pturton]

Recently I took an impromptu portrait of some 21 volleyball players. They were 11 across shoulder to shoulder in the back row and I made the shot across the VB court with available light and my 50 f/1.4 @ 1/80, f/4 ISO 800. With my 85 lens, the group could only be 9 across from the same distance.

 

Using my example I figure your 17-85 set to about 28mm should give you a reasonable working distance and comfortable grouping of 35 people if you are taking this picture in a large room or gym and use your flash. Place heavier people towards the middle so the wide angle distortion does not make them appear even wider. Bouncing your flash from a ceiling or reflector board may give more pleasing results.

[ken munn]

Do everything you can to persuade them to pose out of doors. If they will, make sure

there's nothing distracting in the background.

 

Why? You're running uphill trying to shoot indoors in poor light. Your flash is barely

adequate for the situation, and any existing internal lighting will be at a different

temperature and will conflict with the 'daylight' temperature of the flash. Overhead lighting

also casts ghastly shadows under the eyebrows and chins, which your flash may not have

the power to lighten. If you HAVE to shoot indoors, do as everyone says - get there early

and do a rehearsal. Apart from lighting, posing arrangements, lens setting and tripod

position, sort out the room's white balance.

 

Good luck - and get them outside!

[k szafran]

Problem with outside is that the shot will be at about 7pm - also, it's been ghastly hot lately.

 

Sorry to be on the wrong side of the bell curve in terms of my knowledge of how to properly use my camera, but what is meant by "sorting out the room's white balance"?

[robert lee]

"I'm a beginner photographer with a good eye, expensive toys..."

 

Okay, you need more toys. In particular, you need a lighting setup. At a minimum, get a set of strobes with remote slaves. With available light, you may not be able to maintain a sufficiently high shutter speed no matter how high an ISO you set.

[jan_thomas1]

'Sorry to be on the wrong side of the bell curve in terms of my knowledge of how to

properly use my camera, but what is meant by "sorting out the room's white balance"'

 

If the room is lit by daylight, then there should be no problem, as long as you have enough

of it. Basically you need to know which types of lights there are (if any) in the room,

whether they are going to be on/off, and if theres anything in the room which may reflect

and possible alter the colour of those lights. I don't think anyone has mentioned this yet,

but SHOOT RAW with LARGE JPG! Then you don't have to worry about the colour balance

until PP time.

 

USE a tripod. Also, if you have one, use the remote, and maybe use mirror lockup (custom

function). Once the group composition is how you want it, dont eyeball them from the VF,

but stand back and just watch them closely, and fire the remote as and when you want to

(take lots and lots of pics).

 

As to the lens, I would say that the 85 will probably get the best IQ if you have the room to

back up a bit, but any of your lenses at f8 will be pretty good.

 

Good luck, and post the pics when you're done ;-)

[k szafran]

Any recommendations for online information on lighting setup?

 

Kind of an "Everything you need to know, but were too embarassed to admit you didn't understand?" or maybe Photography for dummies...

 

Brands, setup, how to?

[henrik.ploug]

Tripod + 17-85mm @ 30mm and f8 - OUTside.

 

The flash will not be strong enough bounced against the ceiling for a group of 35 people. And you will have better light outside, especially at 7 pm.

 

Just make sure, that you find a good background, that is "apropriate" for students.

 

And remember to take lots of RAW-shots.

[gary_ferguson1]

Your biggest problem hasn't really been mentioned yet, which getting sufficient depth of

field for front to back sharpness across the entire group. At a guess a group of 35 will be

at least three deep and possibly four deep, so you'll need about eight to ten feet of depth

of field. If you use the 17-85 set for 30mm, and you're about 10 feet from the group, then

you'll just have enough depth of field at f8 providing you don't print any larger than A4

maximum. The key word here is "just", it's a difficult situation with little room for error.

 

Incidentally set the lens much wider than 30mm and circular or spherical objects (like

heads!) near the edge of the frame will begin to distort.

 

Ask any experienced wedding or social photographer and they'll tell you that group shots

are technically very challenging, and indoor group shots particularly so.

 

IMO you've little chance of making a satisfactory job of this unless you take them all

outside into an areea of open shade, sit your camera on a tripod, either tier them (first row

seated, second row standing, third row standing on benches), or get yourself up a step

ladder with a very tall tripod, choose f11, and take several shots in the hope that you can

find one without anyone blinking.

 

Good luck!

[gary_ferguson1]

Incidentally, you describe yourself as having "expensive toys, but very little knowledge".

It's worth reflecting on the words of Alfred Eisenstaedt, he said "photography is 90% just

moving the furniture around". What he meant was that it's all about preparation, and for

the shot you're undertaking that's absolutely true.

 

I once saw a friend of mine pull off a fantastic group shot, he set up a tripod on top of a

Land Rover, looking down on 40 or 50 people packed in close together. His assistant was

standing beside him, and suddenly without any warning, the assistant turned around,

dropped his pants, and mooned at the assembled group. In that split second, as shock

registered on every face, the photographer made his exposure too!

[paul_repacholi]

I hate to rain on the parade, but...

 

GO and borrow a 5D, 1Ds or a MF film body and a BIG flash. Shoot it outdoors using the flash for fill.

 

Group shots are odd. They are big, but people want to see all the details on ONE person, so the usual rules for quality and viewing distance go out the window.

 

If you have to use your gear, use either of the primes but again, outdoors with good light!

[lovcom_photo]

This is very easy. Forget about all those lenses. For 35 people, you're going to need a fast wide prime. Canon makes excellent cheap non-L primes like the 24mm, 28mm, 35mm, and even better L lenses: 24L and 35L.

 

Forget about the zooms. IS is not going to do much for subject movement.

 

Use one of the above and open up the aperture for sufficient depth-of-field. Put the camera in manual mode, set the flash to full auto E-TTL, and make sure its not in Hi-sync. Consider using a flash gun defissure, but be mindful that it will cost you 1.5 - 2 stops of light. Still, E-TTL will work with this. You might be able to use a bounce flash. Use the lowest ISO that you can get away with. First start with ISO 400.

 

The flash will send out the required light to give the group a good exposure. The camera's shutter speed will expose the background to your taste.

 

I would take no less then 4 shots at different shutter speeds to expose the background to taste, and making sure the ISO provides allows the required shutter speed. Depend on your histogram reading to judge exposure. You might need to take more or less shots depending upon the results you get.

 

Shoot in RAW only so that you'll have more leeway during post processing.

 

When setting the aperture on a wide angle, and since you might have to really back up, you'll be surprised at how fat the depth-of-field can be when you open up the aperture.

 

Watch out for grainy/noisy images if your ISO is too high.

 

When judging exposure try to get within 1/3 stop of perfection. The skin tones are going to be problemmatic if your exposure is off too much.

[kin_lau]

Not that hard. If you can get them in 3 rows, 12 wide, then you can use the 50/1.8 from about 30-40ft away (I've done something similar several times, mostly 50-70 from 50ft away).

 

Find a area with a white ceiling and use bounce off the ceiling.

 

Going 3 rows deep is easiest if you have a stage area or a wide flight of stairs. Otherwise, since it sounds like a school, you should have no trouble getting 2 rows of chairs. 1st row seated, 2nd row standing, 3rd row standing on chairs. Alternatively, depending on the size/age of the students, 1st row kneeling/sitting on floor, 2nd row sitting, 3rd row standing.

[lovcom_photo]

Paul, I'll have to disagree....he does not need to use another body. His 20D is more then sufficient to deal with the task at hand.

 

The problem is not the body. The problem is the lens, and flash technique.

 

I have a 5D and love it, but to suggest that the 5D will do much more then the 20D is unfounded, in regards to the shooting problem brought up here.

 

I think his biggest problem is that he does not have a fast wide lens, and if he can rent or borrow one, then he now has an excellent change to get the shot and it may well look great even at 13" x 19", again if his technique is sound.

[digitmstr]

>>The problem is the lens, and flash technique.<<

 

I have to agree. The only wide lens he has is too slow and one flash may not be sufficient to evenly light the scene (I don't know about walls, etc...).

[m_barbu1]

K, FWIW, I agree with Ken.

 

In order to fit all those people in the photo, regardless of in what configuration you have them, their faces are going to be tiny -- even at 8x12. You want to have as little noise as possible, which necessitates bright lighting. Unless you add sufficient supplemental lighting (more than just one flash unit), I don't think you're going to get enough light for ISO 100 (your most saturated, least noisy option, even with a 20D).

 

My last tip is to make sure everyone is looking at your lens, and to take several exposures to try to minimize getting the odd person with their eyes closed (from blinking).

[calebcondit]

I personally would use f8 on a 17-85 at about 25mm to get all in the photo, put the widest in the middle of the frame, 3deep, and get someone (or somthing) to hold a large piece of white foam core above the flash at a 45 degree angle to reflect the flash.

 

Shoot at an iso of 100, 200 or 400. Above this will create problems with image quality (if you're new to this, you probably haven't used noise ninja or other noise reduction software). The point of the foamcore is that it spread the light more evenly over the group. Even so, this is a dainting task. Try to get all lights on in the room possible.

 

If you have a laptop, just tether your camera so you get an instant preview of the shot as there are so many involved and getting them all to look good will be difficult.

 

Look at the histogram and make sure that at least 75% from left to right is filled to have enough information for properly rendered skin tones.

 

Also, try all of this beforehand with a smaller group, family or friends and see how well it works, so that you can focus on just shooting when it comes to the larger group. Most commercial photogrphers try out new ideas a day before so that when the client comes in they are more confident and effective with the shoot.

 

Good luck

[gdanmitchell]

If you can stand back far enough, use the 50mm f/1.8. It is the sharpest not-too-telephoto

in your list. If you can't stand back very far you will no choice but to use the 17-85mm.

 

The 17-85 may work fine if you won't enlarge the print too much and if you stick to middle-

ish zoom and aperture settings as much as possible, but it is not as sharp as the other

lenses, particularly in the corners.

[sultan_saleem]

Hi folks,

This is my first post on photo.net, interesting place and good people :)

 

Professionaly i make films for weddings/parties. I got this project to film and foto homes for real-estate biz. For this I just bought canon eos30d with 17-85 f4-5.6 and im happy it do job well.

 

Yesterday at neighbours party i tried to capture people dancing in room lit with candles. Rooms shots were perfect, wideangle! candles herenthere, good. I was not able to capture people, all got motion blurred. If Im not wrong that is because longer shutter time. Is this the limitation of lens ? How can I capture people in candle light :)

 

Also Im about to buy ef50 f1.4 to try portratures. Many many people are addicted to this i read. Im gussing there will be many similarities in the end results. if theres anyother better option please advise, but i cant buy toysrus!