Serious "How-To" question

[Asmodeus]

I've been asked to shoot Senior Night at my daughter's high school homecoming game. This means that they introduce the seniors and their parents before the game actually starts; they meet at the 50 yard line and walk together to the sidelines where they all line up.

I need to be able to take a shot of the family walking to the sidelines and then a quick family portrait once they get to the sideline.

Other than using the 20D for the shot of them walking from the 50 and the 5D to shoot the portrait I'm at a bit of a loss as to how to do this and make sure they get good pictures.

It's an evening game, under the lights. Other than reflectors and tripods, I don't have any additional equipment other than what is listed in my sig that I can use. I can probably use my son as an assistant, but not to actually shoot images.

Any help or direction as to what I need to do to setup and get good pictures would be most welcome. I usually shoot landscapes, animals, and every now and then, daytime outdoor sports. This is a little out of my experience range and I'd rather not screw up.

TIA

[dave13]

My advise would be to use one or the other camera. Forget trying to juggle them both. Senior night for any sport is a big deal and if you are THE photographer, you can have some say in how much time they pause in their walk for you to snap their picture. They usually pause several seconds allowing you to focus and take at least 2 shots before moving on. Boost your ISO and use the 580. I'd use your 70-200. This will give you some reach to get the shot of them walking towards you and then the portrait. I'd still shoot at around f/4 - 5.6 to give adequate depth. Since it is before the game, you might luck out and still have some sunlight left.

You can use your son as "traffic control" meaning use him to tell them to hold still for a second etc. And by all means, make sure you have fresh batteries in your flash and freshly charged batteries in your camera. Arrive at least 45 minutes early.

I've shot Senior Nights for soccer, lacrosse and basketball. It's really not that hard, you can do it. Good luck!

[Asmodeus]

It went pretty well last night. They did change up on me and I only shot a quick family portrait before they started their walk across the field, rather than while they were walking and when they go to the lineup.

Learned a couple of lessons; the first was to make sure your background doesn't change. About halfway through the session the ambulance pulled up and parked 50 yards behind us directly in frame. So there are a number of shots where I would really like to clone out the reflective markings, but there wasn't anything I could do at the time (I had about 15-30 seconds for each shot).

The second was how short most people are ;). I never really think about it, but I'm 6'4, and I found that in about 2/3rds of the shots I had to crouch down so that iI wasn't shooting the tops of peoples heads.

There was a pro there shooting the football team and cheerleaders (I was just shooting the band) and he was very helpful with suggestions and relating his experience. The funny thing was he told me that I would have to back way up to shoot with the 70-200 (we were shooting from about 18 feet away from where the parents and kids would stop for the photo). I asked him what he was using and he told me his 18-70, but that he shot at about 50mm. I pointed out that his Nikon was a 1.5 crop and I was shooting full frame so I actually had a larger FOV at 70mm than he had at 50.. His reply was " I don't knowwhat you mean by crop, but OK." Nice guy though, and his suggestions on how to shoot the kids were useful.