? about family photo on the beach

[coralfishg]

hi there guys.. i was asked to do a family photo for some friends of mine on the beach.. we sceduled it for today at 6:00 i wanted to do it later in the afternoon becuse of lighting issues, but non the less we are doing it at 6:00.. I really am far from being a pro, heck this will be my first paid assignment.. is there any pointers that you guys can give me, as far as settings and what not.. i will be using my tripod, and using a remote for the shutter to make shure there is no movement on my end..

any help will be greatly appreciated.. i am using a canon 300d. I have no fancy lighting, like lite boxes, or external flashes.

thanks in advance..

jason

[Anke]

Can't help you too much on settings but why not just let them pretend you aren't there and get the more candid kind of shots, I find posed shots look too fake, some great laughing and enjoying-each-other shots would be much more memorable.

[Sam]

If your shutter speed is fast enough you should have no problem with camera movement. At 6:00 here we still will have an hour and a half before sunset, not sure about where you are but the light should be adequate enough for fast shutter speeds.

Without a flash you should pick up some type of reflector. You can go with a metallic widow shade for your car or a white piece of foam core.

Camera settings will vary depending on what you are shooting for. Pay attention to shadows, with no flash you won't be able to balance them and you'll have either half underexposed or half over expesed shots.

Count on some blown out sky, unless you get lucky and can get really great light on your subjects. If it's semi cloudy where you are wait for the sun to pop behind a cloud.

Are you clients aware that you don't have experience with this type of thing? Based on your questions you are setting yourself up for a frustrating day and maybe some dissapointed people. Not much you can learn in the next few hours...

Good luck, post some when your back.

[Hellashot]

If it is sunny, not sure where you are, make sure your shadow does not encroach on your subjects. You shouldn't need a tripod and cable release if it is sunny. Probably no smaller than f5.6 and 1/125 should be fine for hanheld - choose then an appropriate iso.

with the Drebel/300D you'll probably be best off in M mode which will give you centerweighted averaged metering instead of Evaluative in Av mode. Try to get them at about the same distance from the camera for optimized DOF.