Large group photo with two hard lights

Hello, all,

I need to photograph a group of ~25-30 people. This is the location:

A higher position with the camera with a wide angle lens will not distort the people as a lower angle will (think over-emphasized legs) and the wide angle will still keep the company sign in frame and in a more prominent position.

Bob Kupecky wrote in post #17181119
A higher position with the camera with a wide angle lens will not distort the people as a lower angle will (think over-emphasized legs) and the wide angle will still keep the company sign in frame and in a more prominent position.

That's a good point. Thanks.

I'm also kind of reconsidering my approach: thinking of using my 'Mombrella' (Westcott 7' parabolic with sock) instead. The only problem is that the lights are only 500J, and even at full power I might not get an even exposure.

43" umbrellas with no socks will feather so much better to keep the light more even across the group.

Queen City = Charlotte, NC?

Regina, SK.

My umbrella arsenal: 7' Westcott Silver Parabolic with sock; Photek Softlighter 45": black-backed, shoot through, with sock, with silver attachment (really versatile, apparently); Photoflex 45" white shoot-through; and Hensel 32" white.

My oldest daughter will be at the Fairmont in Banff next weekend.

Your Photek softlighter 45" without sock and your hensel 32" white will do fine. Use the 32" on the light closest to your camera angle and the 45" on the light further from camera angle and feathered more.

My life=long dream was to ride across Canada on the railroad.

Rather than use hard lights, I use softboxes, and feather the lighting so that those standing closer to the light are in the slightly lesser light which is cast in part of the area of illumination.

I've only got a medium softbox, Wilt. And it's not really efficient: at 6 ft it gives me f/10 and f/6.3 at 13 ft. Considering that these people have to be spanned across an 18-ft (at least) space, I wouldn't use it. One reason why I wanted to use hard light is the efficiency of my reflectors: the 12" reflector gives me f/22 @ 9ft, f/13 @ 18 ft, and f/9 @ 27 ft. The Longhorn gives me f/32, f/16 and f/10 at the same distances.

All of the measurements were taken at 500J.

Alveric wrote in post #17181442
I've only got a medium softbox, Wilt. And it's not really efficient: at 6 ft it gives me f/10 and f/6.3 at 13 ft. Considering that these people have to be spanned across an 18-ft (at least) space, I wouldn't use it. One reason why I wanted to use hard light is the efficiency of my reflectors: the 12" reflector gives me f/22 @ 9ft, f/13 @ 18 ft, and f/9 @ 27 ft. The Longhorn gives me f/32, f/16 and f/10 at the same distances.

All of the measurements were taken at 500J.

But hard lights are subject to Inverse Square falloff of intensity, so distance illumination is more prone to 'back row too dark'.
At least, with softboxes, they start with Inverse Linear falloff (not so bad as hard lights) and it takes a while (past 3x largest dimension of the softbox) for it even to begin to approach transition to Inverse Square falloff.

Are there specific elements in the image that need to be captured? I can tell you for a fact that those windows will reflect a bunch of glare in the group shot.

Don't rule out shooting from the 2nd floor and having everyone look up. (you can still place both strobes on the floor on stands for even illumination) you'll probably have to use a 35mm or 50mm perspective

c2thew wrote in post #17181475
Are there specific elements in the image that need to be captured? I can tell you for a fact that those windows will reflect a bunch of glare in the group shot.

Don't rule out shooting from the 2nd floor and having everyone look up. (you can still place both strobes on the floor on stands for even illumination) you'll probably have to use a 35mm or 50mm perspective

I'd like to include the sign in the photo, but I'm open to suggestions.

If you were shooting from that 'catwalk' in the second floor, where would you place the lights? I once shot a photo from the second floor and the lights, although they were higher than the faces of the group, gave me 'spooky lighting'.

Alveric wrote in post #17181476
I'd like to include the sign in the photo, but I'm open to suggestions.

If you were shooting from that 'catwalk' in the second floor, where would you place the lights? I once shot a photo from the second floor and the lights, although they were higher than the faces of the group, gave me 'spooky lighting'.

Yes, the glass is going to be a problem, that's why I wanted to hide the main light in the walkway next to the elevators: but that's only doable if I use a bowl reflector, or maybe the 45" brolly. The 'mombrella' won't fit there.

The reason why you have spooky lighting is that the light source was aimed at their faces respectively. If you wanted to try shooting from above, you should angle the light in the direction YOU want it to come from. Since you want to light their faces, the light must therefore come from above: meaning bouncing the light off the roof with a reflector or in your situation, bouncing the light off the white catwalk/walkway. You can also mount the strobes on the walkway above, however if you space them out too far, you'll get cross shadows.

When I'm photographing large groups indoors, I always cluster my lights (usually four to six monolights, each reflecting off 60" umbrellas) a few feet above the camera. This arrangement provides the equivalent of one very large light above the camera. This is the way that I've eliminated the nasty shadows of heads in front on people's faces.

My camera is typically 7 to 9 feet above the floor as well.