Christmas shoot

My friend asked me to shoot some kids with santa on a big chair.
Its a christmas party, and in between some events, like a band, i got 5 minutes to make my set up.
It gives me limited time to do a concept.
I think the shoot will happen on the stage, about 70 shots, mostly kids on santa,s legs.
I got 2 flash, 580exii and 430 exii and my 5dmkii.
Got also a umbrella.
Would you consider shooting with a 45 degree flash on the side, or just plain from the front.
I,ve seen some shots from the older photograph, nothing special.


I tought of bringing some backdrop and inslall some christmas lights in front of it.
At least it would be better than a concrete wall, and i would shoot h speed sync to dim the background, so the lights would look great.

My lens
50 1.4
70 200 f4
24 105

Might rent a 70 200 f2.8

Any suggestion on how to do a great shoot are welcome, got to do that set up in 5 minutes.....not a lot of time

Five minutes isn't enough to do set up. Can you set up nearby but not on the stage? A background will be great, but a concrete wall can be ok as it's neutral. A concrete wall with Christmas lights may look weird, but a decorated background with lights could be cool. That'd take more like 2 hours to set up than 2 minutes.

Forget HSS, that's only for killing ambient light which is irrelevant inside. Set your camera at something like ISO400, 1/125th or max 1/200th, F5.6, then set your flash on manual (ideally with a battery pack like the CP-E4 or a third party version) to provide enough light. Main light should be near you, slightly to one side, as if it's too far off axis you'll get weird shadows. Shoot it through/off an umbrella. Fill light to the other side, a bit further round, maybe 1.5 stops down - so if the main light is 1/4 power it would be 1/8 to 1/16th - also diffused if you like. Lights should be roughly the same height as the people, not way above. Remember you should always shoot from chest height of the subject. You may want to light your background separately, or maybe just let it be a bit dark - though I don't like "black hole" dark photos.

24-105 is a suitable lens. You're not making art, you just want nice, simple, well exposed images that are in focus and have enough depth of field. Too far away and you won't be able to talk to or control the subjects. 70-200 is pointless for this.

If you really only have 5 minutes can you set up a plain background in advance? If not just have your lights pre-setup, pre-metered, and go for the simplest background you can. I wouldn't go F4 as you may not get all the subjects in focus, and even at F5.6 so long as the background is a way behind the subject it'd be blurred out at least a little.

Happy to answer questions.

tim wrote in post #16427619
Five minutes isn't enough to do set up. Can you set up nearby but not on the stage? A background will be great, but a concrete wall can be ok as it's neutral. A concrete wall with Christmas lights may look weird, but a decorated background with lights could be cool. That'd take more like 2 hours to set up than 2 minutes.

Forget HSS, that's only for killing ambient light which is irrelevant inside. Set your camera at something like ISO400, 1/125th or max 1/200th, F5.6, then set your flash on manual (ideally with a battery pack like the CP-E4 or a third party version) to provide enough light. Main light should be near you, slightly to one side, as if it's too far off axis you'll get weird shadows. Shoot it through/off an umbrella. Fill light to the other side, a bit further round, maybe 1.5 stops down - so if the main light is 1/4 power it would be 1/8 to 1/16th - also diffused if you like. Lights should be roughly the same height as the people, not way above. Remember you should always shoot from chest height of the subject. You may want to light your background separately, or maybe just let it be a bit dark - though I don't like "black hole" dark photos.

24-105 is a suitable lens. You're not making art, you just want nice, simple, well exposed images that are in focus and have enough depth of field. Too far away and you won't be able to talk to or control the subjects. 70-200 is pointless for this.

If you really only have 5 minutes can you set up a plain background in advance? If not just have your lights pre-setup, pre-metered, and go for the simplest background you can. I wouldn't go F4 as you may not get all the subjects in focus, and even at F5.6 so long as the background is a way behind the subject it'd be blurred out at least a little.

Happy to answer questions.

Yes I can set up in advance,

I got my 580exII on my camera, should I get a cable sync, 3 foot long and shoot a bit on the side?
And use my 430 exII for fill?
Sorry, i'm still learning from flash, and got only two flash, I can go and rent another one, its not expensive.

How far should be the background to the chair (santa and kids) to give a nice blurry lights from the christmas light...

Thanks these are valuable infos, i'm real glad!

Radio triggers would be best, I use Phottix strato ii radio triggers. I guess you could use a cord to the main flash, have it on manual, and have the slave flash on wireless ETTL, but you'd need a long cord and it can be less reliable than radio in some circumstances - bright sun or sometimes other lights. 2-3 meters would be a good cord length if you go that way. You could use a simple trigger cord with the correct adapters, PC sync.

CP-E4 will be helful, with Eneloop batteries.

Not really sure about background to chair distance. Remember the field of view too - if the chair is 2m from the background you might get away with a 50mm lens, but if it's 10m then you might need a 200mm lens to show the same section of wall. Longer lenses show less background, and it's less in focus.

tim wrote in post #16427695
Radio triggers would be best, I use Phottix strato ii radio triggers. I guess you could use a cord to the main flash, have it on manual, and have the slave flash on wireless ETTL, but you'd need a long cord and it can be less reliable than radio in some circumstances - bright sun or sometimes other lights. 2-3 meters would be a good cord length if you go that way. You could use a simple trigger cord with the correct adapters, PC sync.

CP-E4 will be helful, with Eneloop batteries.

Not really sure about background to chair distance. Remember the field of view too - if the chair is 2m from the background you might get away with a 50mm lens, but if it's 10m then you might need a 200mm lens to show the same section of wall. Longer lenses show less background, and it's less in focus.

Ok, I will do some test first, at the worst scenario, I still will be better than what they had before!

For the trigger i'm not sure I will keep my canon stuff for long.I'm thinking Fuji XE2, smaller for what I do, but I got to try it first, not sure I will like the feel of the camera!

thanks again

Most of the simpler radio triggers tend to work on most brands of cameras/flashes. The exception is the fancy ones that do ETTL. The Stratos II that work on my Nikon cameras would work on any camera with a hotshoe or PC port, though they have pass-through connections that are probably brand specific.

Definitely do some testing in advance. Go in there, set it up so everything comes out how you expect. Note your settings, positions, etc, so you can set up quickly. It will help, a lot.

tim wrote in post #16427835
Most of the simpler radio triggers tend to work on most brands of cameras/flashes. The exception is the fancy ones that do ETTL. The Stratos II that work on my Nikon cameras would work on any camera with a hotshoe or PC port, though they have pass-through connections that are probably brand specific.

Definitely do some testing in advance. Go in there, set it up so everything comes out how you expect. Note your settings, positions, etc, so you can set up quickly. It will help, a lot.

I was thinking NON-ettl, cheaper, and ETTL is not always perfect, specially the 580exII
Nikon is probably something I look forward to try! Love the viewfinder

The Stratos II are manual, reasonably priced. I have three sets. I changed from Elinchrom Skyport triggers, which I should probably get around to selling one day.

tim wrote in post #16427894
The Stratos II are manual, reasonably priced. I have three sets. I changed from Elinchrom Skyport triggers, which I should probably get around to selling one day.

Where do we get them?

There's a link in my post above to amazon. Also ebay or direct from phottix.

Cool.

I see that i would need one transmitter and two receivers,
It talk about ttl, is it working ttl or just manual?

I got three sets even though I only need two sets. Equipment breaks sometimes, especially for working professionals who are hard on their equipment.

The radio slaves are manual only, no TTL. The TTL reference is you put the transmitter on your hotshoe then you can put a Canon flash on top of that, ETTL information is passed through to the flash. The receiver can only ever do manual power, set on the flash - 1/128th to 1/1 (full) for Canon flashes.

tim wrote in post #16428101
I got three sets even though I only need two sets. Equipment breaks sometimes, especially for working professionals who are hard on their equipment.

The radio slaves are manual only, no TTL. The TTL reference is you put the transmitter on your hotshoe then you can put a Canon flash on top of that, ETTL information is passed through to the flash. The receiver can only ever do manual power, set on the flash - 1/128th to 1/1 (full) for Canon flashes.

Thanks
Now i know more about ttl.

There's plenty more to learn... like what 18% grey means, how to use FEC, when to drop to manual, light direction, light color, mixing light sources, etc. It's not hard once you know what you need to learn. Strobist or Tangents Blog are great places to learn.

tim wrote in post #16428455
There's plenty more to learn... like what 18% grey means, how to use FEC, when to drop to manual, light direction, light color, mixing light sources, etc. It's not hard once you know what you need to learn. Strobist or Tangents Blog are great places to learn.

When you talk bout strobist and tangent, any place in particular.
I know there is Neil something on the net, really good infos.
Apart from that i am usually here, on potn.
Yes, there is so much to learn, its been 2 years that i follow these forums and that i shoot, i learned a lot.