Group Photo - Horrible Lighting

[scootermcq]

I was recently tasked with the job of taking a group photo of the Officer's in my Lodge.

I am attaching a picture of the room, as well as the ultimate picture.

The rooms is huge, nothing to bounce off of, it is dark, and it is poorly lit. I do not have any proper lighting, so tackled this with 2 clamp on work lights with 100 watt daylight bulbs aimed from stage right and left, a 500 watt work light bounced off of some white bristol board (low center) and a SB-600 speedlight aimed directly at the group with a domed diffuser.

I am not thrilled with the outcome. It does not "do it" for me. Short of buying studio strobes (which ain't in the budget) can anyone throw out some suggestions which might help me make a better lighted picture next year?

Room:



Group Photo:

[Benji]

K.I.S., Keep It Simple. The type of image is not a work of art, it is a documentation of an event. The men photographed probably are not expecting a work of art, they are looking for a document. Next year I suggest using an off camera flash in a softbox above the camera with a 1/8th of a second shutter speed. The softbox lighting will get everyone well lit, the fact that it is above the camera will guarantee no shadows on the faces of anyone and the slow shutter speed will allow the ambient light to keep the background reasonably bright.

Benji

[zona5101]

I think your worklights didn't do a thing for you...it appears your flash did all the heavy lifting. Short of finding a better lit venue, Benji has provided you the best chance for sucess. Good luck and have fun

[scootermcq]

Thank's for the input guys.

[sau]

Hi, Im a newbie on DSLR's, I'm also wondering on how to improve group pics such as this. When Im in a gathering with my friends or family, people would always compress to fit my the frame on my photos. Its really hard to make the photo standout when there are more than 5 faces on the shot. These type of pictures arent lovely but Im certain that there are ways to make it more interesting. I dont have a external flash yet.

[Drakeprimeone]

The first picture seems brighter to me than the 2nd. Was there something different lighting wise? I feel your dillemma imho there isn't much "flash" to the classroom type photo pose. I wasn't sure if it was only the lighting you were unhappy with or the composition etc...

As Benji stated if this photo was meant as documentation then the 2nd is pretty much what was needed/expected. If you wanted a bit of flare I kinda liked the angle of the first pic, having them grouped together looking up at you.

[sarahgirl777]

Looks like the ISO on the 1st photo was 400 and it was 100 on the 2nd. I probably would have left it at the ISO 400, that would have helped. Also you had 1/60 sec for the sec. one. I don't know how slow you would want it but you could try 1/40 or so. If they arn't moving about it might be ok, without blur. I bet those two things would have helped you some.

[x_eternity_x]

It looks the way it does mostly because your flash wasn't balanced with your work lights. In order to truly make the flash work that way you would want to gel the flash (probably CTO, depending on your worklights) and then balance the ratio between the two. This might require turning the flash almost all the way down and perhaps moving it farther back or diffusing it with something. This would help in a few ways. Moving the light father back will give you more even lighting on the people (the faces in the back wouldn't be so dark compared to the ones in the front) because the falloff will be less per foot when the distance is greater. It would also allow you to use your worklights to improve the lighting on the back row.

For next year, I'd probably go with a single flash if that's all you've got, though, because properly balancing ratios and colors between worklights and flashes is notoriously difficult. If your flash is too weak, however, what you're doing isn't too bad because with your still camera and still subjects you can dial down the shutter speed and allow more ambient light o fill in without really having to worry about getting blurred subjects.