A friend of mine would like to take a small family potrait of her, her husband, dog, and parents. Could I have some advice how I might get away with this using one flash?
For any group shot the best strategy is to keep the light centered so all faces are lit the same way. A light to either side will result in uneven light intensity and a different pattern on each face.
Its also important to keep the light above the heads of the subjects, but not so high the brow shades the eye sockets and puts the eyes in shadow. If you make a diffuser like these, then stand on a chair or 3-step ladder to take the shot you will get a nice mix of direct light from overhead and spill off the ceiling in landscape mode...
Materials are not critical. Just take a sheet of 8.5 x 11 photo paper, several sheets of bond paper or white cardboard, cut in the same way as the template at the link in the photo, staple the top flap, then attach to the flash with masking tape or a rubberband.
If possible shoot outdoors in the afternoon. The advantage outdoors is the huge amount of wonderfully soft light the sky provides, if used to maximum advantage.
First find a location where the subjects can stand with sun hitting their backs without any overhanging trees (which will create a green bias to the light). Ideally the background behind them should be uniformly dark, such pine trees. you don't want a bunch of bright distractions in the background.
Clothing is a HUGE consideration in any portrait shot and especially in groups. You can put perfect lighting on a face on a dark background but if the person is wearing a white shirt it will distract so much it will be difficult to see the face in the photo past it. So if shooting on a dark green background of pine trees you want the subjects to wear clothing in darker earth tones that will blend into it, so the faces will contrast. Its not just a matter of tone. Color contrasts such as blue jeans will also contrast. The bottom line goal is to make the front of the faces contrast the most, both by virtue of the clothes not contrasting with the background to start with, and by virtue of how you put light on them.
In a "sun at the backs" scenario the sun is used as "hairlight", the open sky as "fill", and the flash in front will create a highlight pattern over the sky fill -- thus it acts as the "key" light on the faces. As indoors you need to get the flash above the heads of the subjects so it creates a natural looking highlight pattern: natural light comes from overhead and the flash is the "key" light not the fill.
When the subjects are looking level facing the open sky the eye sockets will be darker than the cheeks because the sky light is coming down so steeply the brows shade the eyes. So bring along a ladder to raise the POV of the camera, then have the subjects look up into the camera. When they look up the brow will no longer shade the eyes and the flash will also stay above the faces. Raising the chins up to the light also works in a good why to slim them, eliminating the double chins and turkey neck
cgardner wrote:
For any group shot the best strategy is to keep the light centered so all faces are lit the same way. A light to either side will result in uneven light intensity and a different pattern on each flash.
Its also important to keep the light above the heads of the subjects, but not so high the brow shades the eye sockets and puts the eyes in shadow. If you make a diffuser like these, then stand on a chair or 3-step ladder to take the shot you will get a nice mix of direct light from overhead and spill off the ceiling in landscape mode...
If possible shoot outdoors in the afternoon. The advantage outdoors is the huge amount of wonderfully soft light the sky provides, if used to maximum advantage.
First find a location where the subjects can stand with sun hitting their backs without any overhanging trees (which will create a green bias to the light). Ideally the background behind them should be uniformly dark, such pine trees. you don't want a bunch of bright distractions in the background.
Clothing is a HUGE consideration in any portrait shot and especially in groups. You can put perfect lighting on a face on a dark background but if the person is wearing a white shirt it will distract so much it will be difficult to see the face in the photo past it. So if shooting on a dark green background of pine trees you want the subjects to wear clothing in darker earth tones that will blend into it, so the faces will contrast. Its not just a matter of tone. Color contrasts such as blue jeans will also contrast. The bottom line goal is to make the front of the faces contrast the most, both by virtue of the clothes not contrasting with the background to start with, and by virtue of how you put light on them.
In a "sun at the backs" scenario the sun is used as "hairlight", the open sky as "fill", and the flash in front will create a highlight pattern over the sky fill -- thus it acts as the "key" light on the faces. As indoors you need to get the flash above the heads of the subjects so it creates a natural looking highlight pattern: natural light comes from overhead and the flash is the "key" light not the fill.
When the subjects are looking level facing the open sky the eye sockets will be darker than the cheeks because the sky light is coming down so steeply the brows shade the eyes. So bring along a ladder to raise the POV of the camera, then have the subjects look up into the camera. When they look up the brow will no longer shade the eyes and the flash will also stay above the faces. Raising the chins up to the light also works in a good why to slim them, eliminating the double chins and turkey neck
Thanks a TON Chuck! Yea actually I do have a Lumiquest quick bounce, works great, and we will be doing it outside at a local park, thanks for the extra info! Very informative.
When shooting outdoors the sky light is so soft a diffuser on the flash will not make much difference so all things considered its better to just use direct flash and gain the extra 2-3 stops of flash power.
It is in situation like that where having the direct flash raised 12-18" over the lens on a bracket makes a big difference in how natural the lighting looks. Raising the flash puts the highlights it creates on the upper half the the cheeks and chin, just as natural light does. Flash in the hot shoe comes from so near the lens axis, especially in portrait mode, than the highlights mind up lower on the cheeks, etc. and don't look as natural (i.e. fake). So the bad rap flash gets for looking unnatural has more to do with how it is positioned relative to the faces and lens axis than its intensity.
Also FYI - in that group shot example you can see how distracting the white shirts are. My bad for not arranging the group better, but this wound up being just a test shot. They are part of the hospitality team that does food prep at my church and there was supposed to be twice as many people wearing matching "team" t-shirts, but there was a communication foul up. I never got a chance to re-shoot it as planned.
What I should have done to minimize the problem of the distracting shirts and actually turn it into a solution (lemons into lemonade) would be to put all the white shirts in the middle of the group so the distraction pulls the eye in the center of the group not out to the edges, but the two kids on the end showed up after I'd set up the rest of the group so I put the on the side. But note how well I hid the potentially distracting red shirt
I do also have a bracket Chuck, I use it at weddings with an off-shoe cord. And yes I do see what you mean with the white shirts, great tip and one I'll be sure to relay to her and her husband
