Large outdoor group shot at night

[Aaron Winters]

OK I would like to hear yalls thoughts on how to light this.

Shooting a group of 170-180 women in front of a theater at night. I have 2 550EX, 1 580EXII and 4 320 watt second strobes. I have included a couple images of it from across the street in the evening so you can get some idea of what the location is like. That is a 2 lane road with parking room on each side so about 4 lanes. I am not sure about power for the strobes I don't have any battery packs. I could probably run an extension cord though.

http://studion6.com/temp/pmount01.jpg

http://studion6.com/temp/pmount02.jpg

[michaelnotar]

why at night...it looked preatty dark in there at day time.

high iso, and as slow as a TV as you can go on a tripod, about a 1/30th, try f4-8, plan on using just enough DOF to carry the group. probably wont need much flash power. i think you can do the 580 on camera and the 550s slaved. go for even lighting across the group.

[Aaron Winters]

The even lighting is where I get stuck. If I have several strobes then I get multiple shadows and people casting shadows on other people. I have been leaning to using a single strobe for that reason. However info on setting up for multiples in a case such as this would be welcome as I am not sure of the best way to go about it to be honest.

[David_Buzzard]

Forget the Canon Strobes, they're not going to give you anywhere near enough power to light up 170 people at night.

Take the three 320 watt strobes, and get some 60 inch silvered umbrellas. Put one right behind the camera, put the others to the left and right of camera, at least 10 to 15 feet away from the camera location. I'd turn them all up as far as they'll go. With that theatre, you're going to have to be careful that you don't shadow the group by putting them too far under the Marquis.

If you have the lights high enough up, (like 10 to 12 feet), evenly spaced apart, probably about 40 - 50 feet back of the group, and with the same amount of power, you should be able to spread the light around to the point where there shouldn't be any shadows.

David Buzzard's Technical Blog

[Ed Gerson]

Your biggest challenge is controlling the group you are photographing.

[Paul Kuroda]

You can rent power packs... Get the most watt/sec you can... All in one compacts are probably handier...good tall heavy stands AND sand bags...three on each stand. I would not use umbrellas outdoors due to wind issues...just hard 7" reflectors should be fine. At least two on each side cross lighting so each points to the opposite side....and presuming the marque will be lite you can drag the shutter you may need a very tall tripod or even better.. clamp to a tall ladder. Use wireless trigger. Bring lots of 100'power cords and plug them into different circuits to be safe. Or rent a Honda 2000si generator or two (can be hooked up in parallel with proper cables). I've run my two Profoto D4's 2400ws on one of them but I like to use two just to make sure. Have back up to everything...you don't want to keep that large group of people waiting due to equipment failure.

Talk about stress.
Good luck and I hope they are paying you enough.
-Paul

[DougAxford]

I had typed in a long reply but lost it when the site went down last night - at least it did on my end. So a short reply:

The first question is, what are they committed to buying? If you don't know, find out before you proceed. My experience is that it's not enough to make it viable at all in almost all cases.

Second, what is your camera and lens. Without the proper tools, all of our advice is no good.

Third, do you even have power available?

Fourth, are the sample shots taken at the same time as the final shoot and have you considered weather, time changes (sunset times at this time of year make a HUGE difference over a few weeks).

I'm with David in forgetting the Canon flashes, however I would not use umbrellas. I agree with Ed on crowd control. A gaggle of little old ladies pissed off at you is not something you EVER want to do. You'll be run out of town if anything goes wrong and these sort of jobs are slim at best.

My personal advice: answer question #1 and then we'll talk. It's a very doable job. My guess is that the customer is thinking cheap and you are thinking $$$.

Doug

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