Advice - FA Cup photography

[tigerroar]

Hi, looking for a little advice here. In a few weeks time we're having the FA Cup at our ground and I've been asked by the club to do the photos. We're expecting maybe 100 people to come down and have their photo taken with the famous old tin pot and I'm looking for advice on how to photograph people with trophies as I really MUST get this right.

I have been told by a pro friend to shoot in manual 125th/sec and F5.6 but do I use the flash or not? I reckon yes as it'll likely be indoors but I'd hate to think that that I'll get a glare off of the cup itself (n.b. I only have the built in flash on my 20D and am not experienced with using it too much).

Another thing is do I use centre focus or all nine points? It may seem like a no-brainer but I used 9pts on a player portrait recently and it came out OOF. If I am on centre focus is there any danger that the cup itself will be OOF? Please bear in mind that no-one is allowed to even touch it, let alone hold it up and I've been told that that rule will be enforced by two bald, burly security guards!

Any ideas are appreciated and I'll have a practice with some dummy cups soon!

Thanks for looking in......

[saggy9999]

think you will struggle with the on board flash to get no glare of the cup
if your shooting in portrait set the focus point to one near the eyes
or focus and re compose the pic

[NeverFollow]

best advise would be too go ahead of time and test everything out

[DarrenL]

Tiger, I know you want to do well, but don't put your self under too much pressure.

Are you photographing the 100 people as a group or 100, smaller groups of say 25 or individually with the trophy? The most impact will be with the large group, however, the pack will be wide unless you have access to raised areas so you can 'tier' the rows.

An external flash is useful to give a bit of fill, an internal might be okay, but not as your primary light source. You need an aperture of around f5.6 so that the rows of people behind the trophy are in focus. If you shoot at 1.8 (to gain a higher shutter speed) you are going to start getting OOF faces etc.

Take the time to pose the crowd if possible.

Darren

[musicmate]

i know car photographer's use a polarizer to cut down on glare & reflections i dont know if that will help.

[gazcoyle]

Ive shot the RL Challenge Cup a couple of times both indoors and out, first time was indoors with an old 10d and onboard flash, massive mistake.

Second time was about 6 weeks ago indoors and out when the cup was at my local amateur club, used 1d2 with flash bounced off the ceiling, aperture was f/8 if i remember correctly, the Cup was placed directly in front of individuals with about 6 inch between the trophy and the body, i did some test shots at home with a bass box in place of the trophy and found anything less than f/8 had one or the other out of focus.

There are variables like the crop factor of the camera and relative distance you are away from the subjects and to some extent the lens used but f/8 worked a treat for me.

Outside, i threw on the 300 L IS, stepped right back and brought the aperture down to f/5.6, perfect.