Advice needed on taking team and individual player pictures.

[Cheese]

I will be taking pictures of the players on my son's baseball team and could do with some advise. Although I am new to digital photography I have some experience with a film camera, Canon Ftb. I will be using my new S45 for the pictures.

The pictures of the individual players will be taken outside and be head and shoulder shots. The pictures will be used in a team program for advertising purposes.

Should I use the "P" setting or is something else better?
I will probably need a fill flash but am not sure how to set this.
Should I zoom to a higher focal length to get a more realistic looking image?

Any other advice?

Thanks for your help.

Cheese

[VicGlass]

I will be taking pictures of the players on my son's baseball team and could do with some advise. Although I am new to digital photography I have some experience with a film camera, Canon Ftb. I will be using my new S45 for the pictures.

The pictures of the individual players will be taken outside and be head and shoulder shots. The pictures will be used in a team program for advertising purposes.

Should I use the "P" setting or is something else better?
I will probably need a fill flash but am not sure how to set this.
Should I zoom to a higher focal length to get a more realistic looking image?

Any other advice?

Cheese,

If you are new to digital photography and cameras I recommend that you do not use "P". Instead let the camera make the correct descisions for you: use "Portraint Mode", which is the "face" setting to the left of the green "Auto" on the dial; also set Record Mode to "Redeye Reduction Fill-in".

If you are doing head and shoulders, fill the entire frame with the head and shoulders with your built-in lens zoomed anywhere from 85mm to 105mm. Your built-in zoom has a range from 35mm (wide angle) to 105mm (telephoto). The reason to keep the focal distance "long" is to blur the background, which looks good with a head and shoulders portrait.

If you need fill flash the flash will automatically go off. Whether or not you need fill depends on the way you set up the shot in terms of the lighting. If the shot is outdoors, choose the time of day when the light is good for photography, that is, the early morning or late afternoon. Of course you probably know not to have the sun shining into the subjects face directly.

One last thing. Practice on someone before you do the team shots.

If you need more help, just shout.

Thanks for your help.

Cheese

[Cheese]

Thanks for the reply VicGlass. Since this was my first post I wasn't sure if anyone was going to respond.

Your advice was helpfull. It confirmed some of the things that I thought I should do and straightened me out on a couple of others. I don't know why I thought the "P" setting was for portraits when it isn't really.

My son doesn't know it yet but he is going to be spending some time as my practice subject.

Thanks again.

Cheese