Photocamp group shot flash right - a photo on Flickriver

Most of the Edinburgh Photocamp 1 attendees in the lecture room. Another room was devoted to a portrait studio.

[An inclusive panoramic shot of everyone can be found here. Because of the better detail (due to the lower ISO) the flash shots were chosen for the panoramic stitching for the group photograph.]

These group shots were taken with a (quite good quality for a zoom) 18-250mm at 18mm with a (quite good quality for an extender) 0.8 wide angle extension added to it, giving approx 14.5mm (on a 1.5 "crop" sensor). Not quite wide enough, so until I discover how to stitch the left and right shots together, here's the group shot in two halves, left and right, and in two lightings, ambient and flash.

I wanted f8 for depth of focus, so in the ambient light for a reasonable hand held shot shutter speed I needed ISO 3200 which is rather noisy in my camera, so the ambient light images suffer from noise and noise reduction. How could I have improved on these? If I'd had a really high tripod to get the height of these shots, such as a lighting stand standing in for a tripod, I could have gone down to 1 sec or so, and asked the audience to play Victorian portraits and hold their breath while grinning frozenly :-)

The flash was supplied by a Metz 60 plus a 60-40 accessory head. They were both mounted on the same stand, placed behind the camera, one head pointing up, left, and a bit forward, the other up, right, and a bit forward. Given the low ceiling that was supposed to give a room wide ceiling bounce. There was plenty of light (I had to turn it down to roughly half power), but of course the inverse square law dimmed the folk at the back. I've compensated for that to some extent by flattening the contrast.

Better would have been another ceiling bounced flash on a stand half way down the aisle, but that would have taken more setting up time. Another more portable option using two heads on one bracket is to use one flash of the pair on a wide diffuser to light the nearby ceiling, and the other with a telephoto attachment aimed outwards and up to light the middle ceiling. But I haven't yet made the telephoto attachment!

It was sunny outside, and there were plenty of steps to arrange a stepped group portrait, which would have given a much better group portrait, but I wanted to show the venue.

Other suggestions on to how to improve such shots welcomed. Yes, I know I should have told people when I was shooting and asked them to smile!

Original DSC09921RW1X

Taken in: United Kingdom / Scotland / Edinburgh / Lauriston (show map)

Taken on: October 4, 2009

Tags:

edinburghphotocamp1

group shot

portrait

strobist

VCL-DEH08R

em20091004 « less

Sets appears in: • Edinburgh Photocamp 1 • Group Portraits more » • strobist « less

Groups appears in: • Edinburgh Photocamp

Camera: Sony DSLR-A350, f/8.0, 1/60 sec, 18mm (=27mm), ISO 200 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Sony DSLR-A350
Aperture:	f/8.0
Exposure Time:	0.017 sec (1/60)
Focal Length:	18mm (35mm equivalent: 27mm)
ISO:	200
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	On, Fired
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Sharpness:	Hard
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Picasa 3.0
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