What was your largest group shot with a Mark II

For anyone with either a 1D MarkII or a 1Ds Mark II.

What was the largest amount of people in a group shot you have done with either of the Mark II cameras, and what was the largest print size of that group?

I have a job at the end of the month in which I shoot a group of between 70 - 120 firemen and then make a 20 x 24 print.

The photographer that used to do this job every year shot it always on 35mm and they could just about make out who each person was. So in the past I have shot this on 4x5 film, and they have raved at how great the print looks.

I would like to shoot this digitally if I could, but I need to know the detail will hold all the details in the faces. The rest of the job which is portraits of the members and other groupings will all be digital and I don't wish to lug out the sinar for one shot / one print again. Each person in the large group shot also gets an 8x10 which will cost more if printed from 4x5 sheet film and it really is over kill for small prints any way.

Money on this job is good, but eventhough I have an assistant, I want to make the load a little lighter this year.

Well, I dont shoot group photos like that, but to give you an idea of the detail retained with the MKII, look at the following photo.

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Not a 1Dx but with my D60 and Tamron 19-35 at 19. 100% crop. There were about 60 people in the scene. We normally shoot outside, but we had a horrendous storm and this was about the only place I could get the whole group of 75-100 into (used PhotoStitch). These people were in the back row. EXIF should still be there.

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I do 20x24 prints on a fairly regular basis and you will not be disappointed. Heck, even my ancient 10D does just peachy-keen on 20x24's.

If you are feeling really brave... do a pano.


N

Very interesting. I think I might stage a mock up (camera to subject distance etc) of the shoot and do a test print.

I have printed on my 2200, 11x14's from my 20D and L glass with groups of up to 15 people and sometimes I'm not to happy with the detail with the camera even at 100 asa.

160,000 screaming NASCAR fans. Well, I couldn't tell if they were screaming or not as I was wearing hearing protection:

I cant find the image, but with my 20D, I have taken a photo of a train about 800 feet away, and if you zoom in on the windows, you can very clearly see the engineer and conductors faces.


I have also taken a photo of an airliner flying at several thousand feet, and if you took it to 100%, you could see individual windows on the plane.

I think you will do fine using digital.

However.... Here are a couple photos from the other day.


The first one is my goofy boss waving at me like a school girl, on his way back from a passenger run we did. Then is a 100% crop, so you can see the detail in the face.

The last one is another 100% crop from a very similar image.

Taken with a 20D.

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I use a 1 Ds MKII.

At a wedding, with a Quantum X2 flash on a bracket, I shot about 30 people in a med. size room. Turned out great. As long as the light is good, and you can see all their faces, you'll do fine!

I regularly use my 1D MkII to shoot cast photos of my wife's childrens theatre company. The casts are from 50-80. The results have been great. As long as you have enough light to stop down the aperture to get a deep enough DOF, you are fine.