I used a Manfroto aluminum monopod for 35 or more years. I used it for all kinds of photography including sports using long lenses and wedding to support my "Boat Anchor" (a Mamiya RB) and I used it as a walking stick any time I went photographing in the woods, and on a number of backpacking trips. Wore out the rubber tip in Olympia and replaced it with a rubber chair tip (for tubular steel chair legs) I picked up at a hardware store. Though that original monopod gave me yeoman service, I recently replaced it because of a broken tightening clamp. Sorry I can't tell you the model number on the old monopod but the new one (I fully expect it to serve me as well) is a Manfroto 680B. I purchased the four section model so it would fit in my backpack and carry-on luggage. I can recommend this for your use.

Since I moved back to Northwest Indiana decade ago, I have been dismayed at the lack of quality camera stores. I noted Central Camera in Chicago's Loop, above, but that becomes a full day's trip. I have one local store I do trade at, but it doesn't have the inventory to make me happy. But, when I venture back to New Jersey, where we lived for a quarter century, I always take an afternoon to go to Unique Camera on Route 46 in Fairfield. They've got an ample stock so I am always able to look at what interests me; they have knowledgeable personnel that is not afraid to give an opinion; and they have an excellent (for a camera store) coffee bar so you can relax as you take it all in. Try it if you are in the area.

It's been 35 years since I worked in the loop an haunted Wolks and all the other camera stores during my lunch hours. Unfortunately, they are all gone except one of the best, Central Camera, 230 South Wabash Avenue! Go there, especially if you have any interest in vintage or specialty gear! The only other loop camera stores I can find are a couple of blocks north: International Camera, 9 N Wabash; and Chicago Camera Repair Specialist, 5 S Wabash.

Alas, camera stores are mostly in my memory.

NO! A polarizer lens may help if the sun is high.

Yes, using a specialty Fuji (using film) group panorama camera mounted atop a tall ladder. We had to stake out an area in a trapezoidal shape (which conforms to the picture frame when shot looking down from that height) and carefully line up our subjects within it. It requires practice and knowing your equipment.

I have also taken a very large graduating class (500? - not quite) sitting in their stadium bleachers, again from atop a tall ladder. This came out well. And a couple of good sized school groups lined up to spell something out, from the school roofs. These were in the hundreds - one might have been 500.

With that many people you are not going to be taking "portraits" showing each individual face as you are with more reasonable sized groups of 20 or 30, maybe up to 50 individuals. Assuming that the entity you're doing this for either has done it before or has a real good idea what they want, let them set this up! Concentrate on getting the correct exposure and focus! Focus on individuals one-third of the way back from the front of the group, and use f/8 for a crop sensor and f/11 for a full frame sensor.

500 people, if they are on a level surface, pretty much requires a HIGH point of view in order to see them all! If they are seated in a stadium so that those in the rear are higher than those in front, you need to be up at a level at or slightly above the mid point of the group!

It can be fun! (500 in one group - bring a megaphone!)

Trust me, you were lucky if they gave you cooperation for a full 20 minutes! You should try a wedding party! "When does the bar open?" "OK, you got a picture, let's party!" Etc., etc., etc. (It only works at all because the bridesmaids are tougher than the guys.)

Hope you had fun.

Burkphoto is dead on! I spent a decade and a half doing this type of work. Transitioning from film to digital midway through. Doing sports I would do one, sometimes two gigs five or six days a week. With film (negative film with its built in latitude) I would just send off the the unprocessed rolls to the studio from each job. But with digital, I had to transfer the images to disk before mailing them off. There was no time for post processing! Everything was shot as Jpeg only (my earlier DSLR's had just one slot), and the exposure had to be on the mark!

When I started, wedding photographers mostly used 400 ISO negative film and over exposed, taking advantage of the greater latitude in that direction. Going digital required a little experimentation, but it worked out. I was lucky because I had shot a lot of transparency film and didn't have as much of a learning curve. (Some of the older wedding guys shot everything with two strobes at about the same distance at f/11 and relied on Igor - yes, our lab guy was named Igor - to adjust density in the print phase. I think most of them retired before going digital.)

If I was doing a panorama, or rent one of the specialty cameras for that purpose. But when you started this thread I didn't think you were looking to do a panorama! I've done many large groups, only one as a panorama!

Wow! That sure sounds like the hard way to me!

But, if you change distance to obtain the same subject image size, as we all do, then the perspective is changed! If you don't "zoom with your feet" or crop to the same size, your images (at least some of them) will suck! Effectively, then, when you change distance at different focal lengths to get the desired image size, different focal lengths yield different perspectives!

Yes, you are right, you get different perspectives because you change distance, but you change distance ...

Having done hundreds of school and team group shots, I can tell you that 50 people is a LARGE group. That they are talking about shooting from a church roof tells me its not the usual group shot, and you won't have as much flexibility as you might like. If it's a flat church roof, it is usually simply a matter of scrambling up the interior access ladder. (Some of those trap doors can be a little confining coming through with your camera dangling from your neck. Have whoever does the maintenance bring your tripod!) A sloped roof isn't a reasonable request. If your doing a shot from a roof the distances involved will dictate your lens!

Doing a more standard ground level shot, you would prefer the group be on risers or low stairs AND the photographer on a ladder with the camera at least at same elevation as highest row. (If you attempt to shoot everyone at the same level, you can't see those in back. Keeping those in front down low and elevating those towards the back, and elevating the camera really helps.)

Again if a tall enough STURDY tripod is available it will be of great help - once your photo is composed and focused, you can look over the top of the camera and see what it sees, real time. (Extremely important shooting students.) With your "crop" camera you want a normal or longer lens (35 mm - 50 mm); wider lenses accentuate the distance back to the farthest rows, making their faces tiny in comparison. (A slightly longer lens would be good, but you might need a megaphone!)

10:00 AM is getting into the brightest part of the day. Shooting in bright sunshine makes a photographers life tough. Open shade is so much better. It is better to have the sun behind your subjects than behind you where everyone will be squinting. Your ladder can help so you're not shooting up into the sun!

Setting up this large a group can be an interesting problem. The rows should be staggered so the faces in the rear rows each has an open space between the faces in front. As you set up the rows, you want more people in each row going from front to back - one more in each row (if they divide up that way; i.e., 11-12-13-14, or 8-9-10-11-12, but they never do).

Go get 'em, Tiger!

Nikon's shutter travels vertically.

Over the past quarter century I have had a few intersections with KEH. At one time I worked in a camera store (recently out of business, as are so many others, but long after I was long gone) and we used the KEH catalog (I don't think they still print one) to price our used equipment. We bought at half their printed price and sold at their price.

And when I needed an occasional lens or a number of backs for my medium format Mamiya's, I got great service from KEH. Good pricing and the items condition was always better than expected! And recently, when a UHH blog got me wanting a specific out of production lens, KEH had it at the right price and it was in the right condition. I have a propensity to buy new and hold forever, but KEH really makes sense when ever I get out of those ruts.

I have been of the opinion that Kodak was less a victim of poor foresight and more of size. In addition to having used Kodak products for half a century, I had the opportunity to sell them specialized construction services in the eighties, and be their client when I owned a photo studio and lab in the mid nineties. (During the eighties, they were oh so proud of their latest, those APC mini cameras with their silly little flash cubes.) But, in the mid-nineties, I received a great deal of help from their sales agent as he pointed to ways to get ahead of the digital revolution we were heading into. (Alas, he did not point to where the financing could come from.)

A few years later a friend was doing very well as a wedding photographer, shooting exclusively with Kodak-Nikon digital cameras, which were well ahead of the competition (except the very similar Kodak-Canon offerings). No, I believe Kodak judged the future of digital imaging fairly well, but had so much tied up in industrial chemicals and films, which quickly became obsolete, do to many causes, particularly digital imaging. Kodak had the right idea, but they were just too large, too invested in the chemistry side, to successfully make the jump to the new technology. I've always been amazed at how well Fuji made the transition, but I suspect that if you looked hard, Fuji is not now as large and robust as it once was. (But I could be wrong.)

"To take or make" can have multiple interpretations. Many years ago, during a Camera Club outing in the Ken Lockwood Gorge, we were exploring the interplay of water, rocks, and the special lighting filtered through the golden fall foliage, Jimmy and I took many photos. My best, of golden hued water falling past black rocks, was carefully composed and exposed. I am quite proud of it. Jimmy's exquisite entry in our following photo contest was of a rock and some wet leaves, but as Jimmy explained it, he was dissatisfied with the original arrangement and moved, removed, and supplemented those leaves until it exactly met his preconceived ideal. THAT WAS A MADE IMAGE! Mine was of the scene as I found it, no matter how precise my composition and exposure, in comparison, Jimmy MADE his image; I TOOK mine.

Similarly, later when we both were doing wedding photography, we would each arrange the the bride, the groom, and various groups to create, to "MAKE" photos to preserve their memories. Then, during the ceremony and the reception we would "TAKE" the pictures of the scenes as they developed.

My favorite (and maybe best) photographic endeavor has always been in sport. Again, under the criteria set out above, there I stood, waiting for the athletes to do their thing and then "snapping away". "TAKING", not "MAKING". But that completely ignores my efforts, expertise and the artfulness required to be in the best place to record that action, allowing for and exposing for the lighting, composing the image even as I followed the action, timing the release of the shutter, et al!

What I am saying is that it is not a question of MAKE or TAKE, it is always a combination of both and none of us should ever denigrate another's efforts to CREATE an image.