Need some advice, shooting a band...

Well the story goes my good friends dad is in a local rock band looking to expand outward. They are cutting deals and trying to get a little more mainstream and my friend showed them some of my other pictures and they became interested in me possibly doing a shoot with them. Now i'm very excited to do this for them but not only am I new to photography I have basically zero experience shooting people in a 'studioesque' enviroment, and I don't want to let them down with sub-par photos. This is where all of you great photog's on POTN come in , i'm basically just looking for some advice on how to direct them to make the pictures be all they can be.

They want a few different shots, one being a group shot in front of a solid color so a logo can be edited in later (something for an album cover most likely). They also want some other shots with their concert posters in the background, and possibly some shots of them in action at a bar.

My equipment is very limited, i'm shooting with a 20D body mostly using my tamron 28-75mm 1:2.8, but I also have a sigma 75-300mm 1:4-5.6 but I doubt that would be of much help when it comes to this kind of photography. I have been interested in picking up a wide angle lense as of late and if that would be a big help I would probably go ahead and just get that. At the moment I don't have any flashs or other gear aside from a couple tripods. Would I be alright just using natural light and whatever lighting sources I can come up with on the spot? or is there an affordable flash I should look into?

My friend had a great idea that I should use my polebarn for the location. It has nice white drywall all around so that could easily act as the white backdrop, and it also has a loft so it would be kinda cool to get some different angles using that. What do you think of that?


Any help is appreciated, i've been scouring band photos trying to get an idea of what I want to do but i'm still just drawing a blank on some of it. And when it comes to proper lighting and positioning the shot just right I find that difficult at times.

- James

Hi James,

Awesome, we all need to start somewhere.

A few things before I answer...

Can you get them into a studio?

Can you rent / borrow a speedlight?

Rob

Hey rob,

I can look into renting one, and i'll ask the few people I know who might have one and see if I can snag one for the day. I kinda figured the whole natural lighting/pop-up flash wouldn't be enough, but was hoping I could get away with it.

I don't have access to a studio really, I know a friend of mine has a make-shift one set up in his house but he lives a little ways away. I could probably set something up in my basement on a budget, I know i've seen a lot of the people on these forums get creative with their studios and I have a lot of basement room to work with.

Thanks,

-James

Hi James,

Sorry mate, i just realised I wasn't clear about the studio. I meant a sound studio...

Natural light is an awesome idea if you aren't fully kitted out for a studio. But yeah, the lack of control and quality of your onboard flash makes it less than ideal.

If you can rent or borrow even a 420EX or better, then you will be in the right direction.
Shoot manual outdoors, and put the flash into high speed sync. Bracket your flash +/- 1 stop and take three shots at a time, you can get some really interesting shots doing this.

If you can get them into a sound studio., then it provides a really easy setting to get some great shots, you will still need a speedlight though.

Hope that helps a bit.

Rob

aaaah, yeah, I dunno about a sound studio but it's something to look into if they have the access. Thanks for the advice, i'll probably end up buying a 430ex actually since they are pretty reasonably priced and seem to get pretty good reveiws as an entry level flash.

I think i've decided i'm just going to go ahead and get a 430ex, and a tokina 12-24, then call it a day. If I can't get a few decent shots snapped with that equipment I obviously need to work on MY abilities more and worry a little less about what i'm shooting with. Plus the tokina has been on my "next to buy" list for awhile now and it would actually be quite useful for a few other things i've been shooting lately.

Anyone have some suggestions on possible angles that would work good? I'll probably just be all over the place snapping pictures but it would be nice to have a plan going into the shoot on where I want to place some of the shots.

Thanks again rob, you have been a big help!

- James