Small group portraits - Advice wanted

I'm looking at renting a lens for a small group portraits. I was wondering out of any lens I could rent what would you suggest. There are going to be 4 people and its for a Christmas card. I've never shot anything like this before. I'm open to any and all suggestions for this shoot.

Thanks for the help!
-Cameron

I don't think you need to rent a lens as you have some quality lenses already. 17-40L should work great and you'll probably end up shooting at around 24-40mm at f5.6-8 for enough DOF to get everyone in focus.

If you have room to shoot outside, some telephoto images can look nice with a little background compression. Maybe 100mm f4 on your 70-200.

Awesome thanks for the advice! Would you suggest a flash or anything or shoot all natural light?

What is wrong with your 17-40L? As long as you stay towards the longer end it should be fine. Or your nifty?

Having said that though, I love my 35L (on my 5DII) but whatever you decide to go with you need to make sure you are getting all of the people in focus so watch your depth of field.

More so than any lens, a good lighting setup can improve how portrait shots look so have a think about the lighting too.

Cameron Hagen wrote in post #15138496
Would you suggest a flash or anything or shoot all natural light?

Depends where you are planning too shoot and at what time of day of course...

More details would be nice, what and where make a huge difference. I rarely shoot portraits without some flash added, but its not a requirement.

Honestly I shoot most families in the 85-200mm focal range, and probably most often at 200mm. I would go long and use your sigma.

Honestly I dont know where they want it but it'll be around 2-5pm

Cameron Hagen wrote in post #15138527
Honestly I dont know where they want it but it'll be around 2-5pm

If you have a flash take it with you. Once technique that works is to pose the group with the sun behind them and use a flash for fill from the front. That gives you a nice rim light and keeps you from having to battle the spotty sun falling on them from the sides or from behind you. Otherwise look for open shad, but make sure the shade is solid. Just getting under a tree wont always work as you get dappled sunlight giving you splotches of light where you dont want it.

Well I just found out they want it inside in front of their company sign. I was hoping outside but oh well