Need a lens for the 7D for large family portrait

Hi! I've got a Canon 7D, and a friend asked me to shoot her family this weekend, so I will need to rent a lens. It's in her parents house, and I'm assuming there's going to be a minimum of 10 people, probably more. I'd like a lens that will give a blurred bgd, sharp focus on the people, but can take in a larger amount of people. Being it's a rental, skies the limit on which lens I can get, as I don't have to shell out too much for it. Thanks for suggestions in advance

Jodi

Hi Jodi,

Welcome to POTN! Unless it's a very big house and you have lots of room to back up, I don't see how you can blur the background very much. You will need a short focal length lens to be able to have everyone in the frame.

If you've got a 7D, I'm assuming that you have some lenses already. What do you have?

jodi73 wrote in post #15011164
Hi! I've got a Canon 7D, and a friend asked me to shoot her family this weekend, so I will need to rent a lens. It's in her parents house, and I'm assuming there's going to be a minimum of 10 people, probably more. I'd like a lens that will give a blurred bgd, sharp focus on the people, but can take in a larger amount of people. Being it's a rental, skies the limit on which lens I can get, as I don't have to shell out too much for it. Thanks for suggestions in advance

Jodi

In order to blur out the background and take in a large amount of people you're either going to need a huge space behind the group, or you're going to need to use something in the telephoto range and be able to get pretty far back.

But, really, I'd go with something like a 35L and you'll probably be happy with the results. If you want to go the telephoto route, try an 85L and get back a bit.

Good luck!

(There's always the bernoulli effect if they're patient enough!)

Edit:

Sorry, didn't read that you'd be in a house. Indoors on crop you'll need something with a wide aperture and a pretty short focal length. You might check out a 24L. That's about the widest I would go to avoid distortion.

Hi Chris,

So far I only have the lens that came with it- 28-135mm, and a 50mm f1.4

I can always blur the background in photoshop afterwards...was just hoping to save myself alot of work

Jodi

jodi73 wrote in post #15011214
Hi Chris,

So far I only have the lens that came with it- 28-135mm, and a 50mm f1.4

I can always blur the background in photoshop afterwards...was just hoping to save myself alot of work

Jodi

Check and see if the 28mm on your 28-135 will be wide enough, if so, get the 35L, if not, try the 24!

You mean the 24-70 f2.8?

jodi73 wrote in post #15011303
You mean the 24-70 f2.8?

24L II 1.4 prime. It's beyooteeful

Great, thanks! Someday I'll get the hang of figuring out lenses!

Jodi

awe' heck ...get a 10-22... that'll capture the group for sure.

I guess it depends on how much room you have to work with. I bet something like a 50mm f1.4 would work just fine. The trick is going to be finding the right place to stand and aperture to get that level of separation and bokeh.

I imagine the 50 F1.4 would work fine get as close as possible frame wise leave maybe 2-3 feet on edge. Use F5-F10 and leave room behind them. If needed pent tool em blur by 20-30 pixels call it a day. You can probably pen tool 10 peoples outlines in 30 minutes or less depending.... hope that helps. a 135 F2 would be nice......

downhillnews wrote in post #15011919
I imagine the 50 F1.4 would work fine get as close as possible frame wise leave maybe 2-3 feet on edge. Use F5-F10 and leave room behind them. If needed pent tool em blur by 20-30 pixels call it a day. You can probably pen tool 10 peoples outlines in 30 minutes or less depending.... hope that helps. a 135 F2 would be nice......

She's indoors, in a house! Unless it's a mansion with a dance hall, a 135 f2 on crop is going to capture about half of 1 person's head.

Your 7D is a crop camera which gives whatever lens you have on it a field of view smaller than a full frame camera would have. Ten people are not so many, but you will need to back up some distance to fit them in the frame. It would be the same perspective as if you were shooting 80mm on a full frame.
At f1.4 the depth of field would be sufficiently narrow, but you'd have to line them up carefully and keep your self from slanting the camera or keystoning.

A tripod would be a great help in keeping the camera level and straight. At f1.4, if using daylight, your shutter speed would have to be high, so use the AV setting for f-stop and allow the camera brain to choose the shutter speed. ISO should be at lowest native setting, say ISO 100. If your subjects are far enough away from any background elements, you should get the effect you want in camera. Open shade would be best.

Using flash will be a whole 'nother matter. Then you can experiment with your light falloff to black out your background, but your setting will be limited to what's within the flash sync range.

Crap, I forgot the house part. I was thinking of how I did an outdoor group.

Indoors with a 7D you need a wideangle designed for crop bodies--something that will give you a sharp 15mm, like the 10-22. and you may need an external flash with bounce and, possibly a soft box or other light modifying reflector or light softener.

drzenitram wrote in post #15011953
She's indoors, in a house! Unless it's a mansion with a dance hall, a 135 f2 on crop is going to capture about half of 1 person's head.

Oh yeah well hope she can pen tool and blend layers. Gonna be tricky getting any separation with subject and BG. The 50 may work as 80mm thats not to long on a FF inside maybe 20-30 feet away. Maybe it is 35mm may be better....