Advise on shooting outdoor picture for a family reunion

So I have been volunteered to take the picture for a family reunion in a few weeks. The picture will be taken outdoors, I am still trying to find out if I will be able to specify the time so I can control the lighting, or if it will be whenever we can get everyone together. Any advise on what gear I should use along with camera settings and general strategies would be greatly appreciated.

My Gear.

Olympus Pen E-PL2
Panny 14mm pancake with UV/CP Filters
Panny 20mm pancake with UV/CP Filters
Oly 9-18 with UV/CP Filter
Oly 14-42 with UV/CP Filter
Oly 40-150

Tripod
Gray Card

Can I get by without a remote shutter release? (they want me in the picture too)

I am currently thinking of going with the 14mm panny and shooting with as small an aperture as I can get away with given the prevailing lighting conditions.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Just put it on auto, set the timer, run back and get in the picture and let it shoot. Check for closed eyes and if none enjoy the rest of the day.

Fill flash...You never know what the shadows may be like...better safe than sorry...and probably not the pop up flash.

Try to find somewhere where the whole group will be shaded if at all possible, that or where the entire group will be evenly lit...though then you tend to have the issue you probably have people looking in to the sun.

I don't have the picture handy, but I just had to deal with what you did. 21 person family picture. I used my E-M5 on a tripod with the 45/1.8. Settings where (IIRC) f/5.6, 1/400s, ISO200 with about an hour left of daylight on the back porch of my in-laws house. I just used the 12s timer. Hit the shutter release, ran back, threw my middle child in my lap and yelled "EVERYONE LOOK AT THE LIGHT ON THE CAMERA!"

Run back over, quick check the image and do it again.

I did 2 snaps with the second perfect, my wife's, cousins, husband with his 7d (not that it is about the camera) and wireless remote shutter release took about 15 pictures and didn't come close to any as good.

The 14mm is probably not going to be as flattering and depending on the size of the family portrait might result in it having to be "too close" especially with little kids. I'd go with the 20mm personally. In a lot of ways, just like with individual portraits, the more telephoto you can go, generally the better, unless you are looking for some kind of real "special effect" to the picture or are limited in space to setup.
--

Many things dealing with Olympus and their OM and Pen cameras, plus my general photography and musings http://omexperience.wordpress.com/

FreshMeat said:

So I have been volunteered to take the picture for a family reunion in a few weeks. The picture will be taken outdoors, I am still trying to find out if I will be able to specify the time so I can control the lighting, or if it will be whenever we can get everyone together. Any advise on what gear I should use along with camera settings and general strategies would be greatly appreciated.

My Gear.

Olympus Pen E-PL2
Panny 14mm pancake with UV/CP Filters
Panny 20mm pancake with UV/CP Filters
Oly 9-18 with UV/CP Filter
Oly 14-42 with UV/CP Filter
Oly 40-150

Tripod
Gray Card

Can I get by without a remote shutter release? (they want me in the picture too)

I am currently thinking of going with the 14mm panny and shooting with as small an aperture as I can get away with given the prevailing lighting conditions.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Click to expand...

For the focal length, you need to ensure you can get everyone in the shot. That depends on the size of the group. Using the 14mm lens, you get a 19 foot horizontal field of view at 15ft from the camera. 11mm lens gives you one 24 feet from the same distance.

The other thing to worry about is depth of field. Assuming the 14mm @ 15ft gives you a large enough field of view, focusing on the front of the group with an aperture of 2.8 will put everything from 7.5ft to 386ft in focus. That should be more than sufficient to maintain a decent shutter speed.

The only other thing you might want to consider is a flash to fill shadows if you are in the midday sun.

There should be around 50-60 people depending on who shows up. If I go with the 20mm at f5.6 will that give me enough DOF to get 3 rows of people all in focus?

Front row younger children sitting or being held on the lap of a seated adult
Second row the teens and pre-teens.
Third row adults

I don't own an external flash... yet. If I was to pick up the FL-300R for fill flash, what would be the effective range for a mid-day shot?

OK - I can calculate the DOF easily enough using online DOF calculators. How do I calculate the width given a specific focal length. i.e. if I am using the 20mm how wide will my shot be at say 25 feet?

Adding to Fleabags comment,

Let them pick the time. Bring just your zooms + tripod (flash if you have one). Put your camera on auto and join in the family fun. All your family will expect from you are snapshots, so point, shoot and don't stress. Also, have at least one beer.

Bring your two zooms, no need for the rest.

Fleabag said:

Just put it on auto, set the timer, run back and get in the picture and let it shoot. Check for closed eyes and if none enjoy the rest of the day.

Click to expand...

Somebody will close his or her eyes....so...shoot a burst...than another burst. You will be assured of getting all the eyes open at some point.

Is it possible to take your shots from a height - upstairs? a bank? a ladder maybe? It probably means someone else will have to take the shot, but by getting everyone to look up you are unlikely to have any obscured faces, as well as avoiding unwanted clutter in the background. It often works well for larger groups.

You can get a cheap chineese trigger from $20 for a simple one and $50 for an advanced one (with interval trigger etc.) With a little luck it could get there before the event

Depending on the size of the group and your proficiency in PP there are a number of ways to get good group photos at such events.

The easiest from a technical point of view, but strangely the hardest to pull off to a good result is putting everyone up (gets exponentially more difficult with more people) You need to take at least a handful of photos with people in roughly the same position, as someone will be blinking or looking wierd (more than usual ) in every photo, and you will then need to merge the photos in PP selecting the "good" results from each shot and merging them, Photoshop or Gimp with layers and masking is invaluable here.

The more difficult from a technical point is getting people together in smaller groups and shooting them, all with a neutral background, them merging the different group pictures together to one. It takes some skill and a lot of practice to do well, but will yield the best results in the end. If you don't feel proficient (have never done it before) do both (now is as good a time to start as ever ) and try both, getting a few people together for a group shot is much easier and getting a single shot where they are all looking as good as possible is not too difficult either, so it can be done over the course of a full day (but handle WB and exposure) merging is both more and less difficult in areas. You don't have to worry about people moving, as you position them in the final group picture, where in the first point, moving people makes it very difficult to merge.

Many good advices already stated.
All I can add is personal experience and a sample.

Here is a family group shot I did last summer:



Same in B&W:



I am in the shot. Try to find me. I just put the camera on tripod, low ISO, F5 at 17mm, 12second timer. Not perfect but good enough for the purposes.

Tips:

1. Avoid the sun : either it is in their eyes and many are squinting, or it is in their backs and you need fill. Not any normal flash will be sufficient for even light on such a large group. You would need two studio strobes with very large boxes or umbrellas and who brings that to a family gathering? Try to do it on an overcast moment (I was lucky) or find some shade.

2. Don't obsess about closed eyes, weird expressions or faces half covered. With such a large group, there will always be someone less visible. Make two or three shots and be done with it.

A possible tip for getting as many eyes open as possible : have everybody close their eyes, make a countdown and have everyone open their eyes together just before you snap. This is of course easiest if you make the shot yourself behind the camera. But it can be done with self-timer : mine blinks slowly for the first 10 or so seconds and then a bit faster at the end. Even if this does not happen for you, you can count the seconds in your head. So : press the shutter, run to your spot, watch the red light, yell "Close" and yell "Open".

--
Roel Hendrickx

lots of images : http://www.roelh.zenfolio.com

my E-3 user field report from Tunisian Sahara: http://www.biofos.com/ukpsg/roel.html

Depends on how large the group is. I agree with the rest but I would take at least two shots as a safety. I would also if possible do exposure bracketing.

I would be very carful of lens choice wider than 35 mm or 17 mm in MFTs language the edges of the frame will bend. Subdued light is better heck after it rains you have nice natural light usually. Yes, fill flash is good, but for a large group its a waste of time unless you have multiple flashes to cover the group if its large like more than 10 people.

FreshMeat said:

So I have been volunteered to take the picture for a family reunion in a few weeks. The picture will be taken outdoors, I am still trying to find out if I will be able to specify the time so I can control the lighting, or if it will be whenever we can get everyone together. Any advise on what gear I should use along with camera settings and general strategies would be greatly appreciated.

My Gear.

Olympus Pen E-PL2
Panny 14mm pancake with UV/CP Filters
Panny 20mm pancake with UV/CP Filters
Oly 9-18 with UV/CP Filter
Oly 14-42 with UV/CP Filter
Oly 40-150

Tripod
Gray Card

Can I get by without a remote shutter release? (they want me in the picture too)

I am currently thinking of going with the 14mm panny and shooting with as small an aperture as I can get away with given the prevailing lighting conditions.

Thanks in advance for your time.

Click to expand...

FreshMeat said:

OK - I can calculate the DOF easily enough using online DOF calculators. How do I calculate the width given a specific focal length. i.e. if I am using the 20mm how wide will my shot be at say 25 feet?

Click to expand...

There are several of this available online:

http://www.bobatkins.com/photography/technical/field_of_view.html
http://johndudak.com/photographers/fov2.php

Many thanks for the suggestions and even the sample photos, very instructive.

I will plan on using my panny 20mm if I can get away with it, as it is my sharpest lens. If I need to go a little wider, say 17mm, which would be sharper? The Oly 14-42 MKII or the Oly 9-18?

For me to break down the lens ability is getting the specifics of actual design like how many low dispersion elements, or lens elements etc.. It would say something like 4 elements 2 groups and you can see a cut away diagram of the lens on the manufactures web site. The more elements the better.

The other part is you also want to stop down the lens as much as possible so a larger f stop number for better depth of field not shallow like many talk about.

You have a group of people and you need them to be as sharp as possible. You can try using the smallest f stop as possible like f 11, f 16 etc. If its a cloudy or overcast day do not use a filter since filters are all designed to take away light in this scenario.

Ok, so stop down, use a tripod and cable release or if you need to get in on the picture the self timer.

Last don't be afraid to move people to get the shot and use a ladder if you need to and if you can. Try not to have people craning their necks too much, not at all is even better.

FreshMeat said:

Many thanks for the suggestions and even the sample photos, very instructive.

I will plan on using my panny 20mm if I can get away with it, as it is my sharpest lens. If I need to go a little wider, say 17mm, which would be sharper? The Oly 14-42 MKII or the Oly 9-18?

Click to expand...

My best out of two. Sadly the kids were getting rambuncious and it was 99F outside at the time, but overall I think pretty good (except for Cousin Steve...come on man, look at the camera! Though I can't blame him too much, he has really sensitive eyes was was squinting from the sun...speaking of trying to get pictures out of the sun).



Olympus 45mm, f/5.6, 1/250s, ISO200

I would have taken the picture from slightly further back, but there was a 7D on an itty bitty tripod (I swear the thing will blow over in the wind) right in front of mine...okay like 6ft in front of mine, so I already had my tripod at max leg extension and a good 12 inches or so of column extension. Putting it even further away would have meant raising the column more to keep the other camera out of the shot, which I wanted to avoid since there was some light wind.
--

Many things dealing with Olympus and their OM and Pen cameras, plus my general photography and musings http://omexperience.wordpress.com/

ryan2007 said:

The other part is you also want to stop down the lens as much as possible so a larger f stop number for better depth of field not shallow like many talk about.

You have a group of people and you need them to be as sharp as possible. You can try using the smallest f stop as possible like f 11, f 16 etc. If its a cloudy or overcast day do not use a filter since filters are all designed to take away light in this scenario.

Click to expand...

You can use a depth of field calculator to determine the aperture that will give adequate depth of field. Probably about 10 - 20 feet. f4 should be plenty. Use the widest aperture possible to get the fastest shutter speed/lowest ISO.

ryan2007 said:

Ok, so stop down, use a tripod and cable release or if you need to get in on the picture the self timer.

Click to expand...

Very succinctly written.

I think I will practice taking some shots of a couple of my kids outside in harsh lighting conditions and see what my results are. I can still get my younger ones to pose