dparker708

Hi all,

What is the best lens and settings to shoot a family portrait? There will be 5 people. The family requested a "traditional" picture, that is, backdrop and everyone standing together as opposed to a more creative pose. My camera is a Canon 7D. The shoot will take place indoors. Lens and settings?

Thanks,
Diane

MWAC Loc: Somewhere East Of Crazy

Do you have studio lights?
What lenses do you currently own?
How big of a space do you have to work with?
How big (wide) is your back drop?
Is there plenty of light?

All of these come into play, we can't tell you which lens is best (it actually comes down to preference) if we don't know some basics.

dparker708

No to studio lighting, have to rely on external flash. Backdrop is 6' wide. Lenses include Tameron 18 - 250 mm; Canon 100 mm f/2.8; Canon 50 mm f/1.8; & Canon 85mm. Haven't been to the spot yet so not sure about the lighting...any suggestions would be greatly appreciated and thanking you in advance.

wilsondl2 Loc: Lincoln, Nebraska

I would use 50mm at f/5.6 to f/8 depending on how strong of flash you have. You may have use shorter lens if you run out of room. Be sure and not have them to close to the background to avoid shadows. I would bounce the flash from the celing or use a diffuser on it. You may want to shoot with your background outside on an overcast day or in open shade. With the 6' background you may have trouble on the ends with the background being not wide enough. You can fix thes with the clone stamp in photoshop. Good Luck. - Dave

dparker708

Thanks so much Dave! I'm going to practice and see what I get!

glennmayher

Overcast day? Sounds just right for Black&White!

Jer Loc: Mesa, Arizona

Try 85 to 135mm, compresses and gives a more natural look.

JERRY L LITTON

Camera on a tripod. Flash preferred on a mount and tethered with a moblie cord about 18" long, flash on a mount or tripod of it's own or use a bracket to hold the flash to the camera, above, centered on the lens and you might point the flash a little upward and or bounce it off the ceiling like already suggested or tip the flash up some so that you feather the folks with the light near the bottom of the flash beam but be sure to get it low enough to light up the bottom plus a little extra for good luck. Canon flash also has a good scatter plate you can set down over the head. That along wiht just enough flash power works great and recycles fast in case you want to shoot some extra and immediatly to follow up like that kid with his tongue sticking out. Try it first to get this right. 50 mm lens is right, f4 or 5.6. Use maunal focus but you can auto focus it first then turn off the auto. ISO 100 or 200. Shutter speed can be set by Canon 7, it is good enough to do that as well as you. Comapre it in program mode to see what settings the camera calls for the use that as a starting point for chosing a mauuel mode choice. Or use manuel, use your lightmeter bar, I prefere to use spot but matrix is also good.I like to under expose it a little using spot to meter of of something bright, then dark, then middletoned in the shoot area then make your call for something near that middle selection. You might want to manage the people in some way that they are just a few stops of light from dark to bright to keep every thing in near balance judging with the lightmeter bar. Set flash to auto but use less than full, maybe 1/128 or something like that. Experiment at home some to get a feel for the flash, lens, and you might use the, what's the button you push to close the f-stop to the set point. Do that to see where your fosuc plain is and you might feather it so that the folks are in sharp focus at the rear of their line of them but have a little additional focus advantage slightly in front of the group. If they are stacked on top of each other you might find you need to use an f - 8 aperture. If you have a shutter button remote cord use it so you can also watch for blinking eyes or some kid not smiling or worse yet sticking out his tongue. When you get things set up all you have to do is watch your folks in the shoot area and hold a finger on the buttom, you don't have the look through the camera since you have all the facts attended to. If their feet stay palced they are most likely in the focus zone of the f-stop choice. Talk the folks through it, get them use to you while you get use to them. Do a few serious smiling photos then hammer away while you talk and laught and get them in a mood for good luck and to see just what falls out of the camera. Shoot raw and maybe a large jpg, but rawis best if you can manage the images. Work from the raw images. If you do this for fun have a blast with it. If you do it for money have a blast with it and charge a lot.

ShakyShutter Loc: Arizona

And use the histogram function on the camera when shooting! It can save your butt. Never use the camera screen to adjust exposure, it is full of evil tricks and questionable intentions.

Jer Loc: Mesa, Arizona

Like what? All Cameras? What do you use?

JBTaylor Loc: In hiding again

I learned this the hard way a few years ago when taking some late in the day portraits on vacation with no time in the schedule for a do-over. I had a small Konica-Minolta P&S that also allowed manual control. The screen brightness was set to be viewable any time of day and with the sun going down, the pictures that looked just right on my screen ended up being too underexposed to use.

I have nearly forgotten a couple times and done this again with my DSLR before realizing my mistake.

larrycumba

Average person is two feet wide or more x five. Six foot backdrop.