Pro Photographers I need help taking a group photo!!

[93Renny]

Every year I'm asked to take a group photo of everyone in a shop where I work. The picture comes out OK, but not as good as I'd like. The people are some what grainy, or blurry or whatever, just not real crisp. I have to crop the bottom due to the width of the of the picture and waisted space at the bottom. The guy's and some gals line up outside 3-4 rows deep, there is a small set of steps in which to have a couple of them stand on, but not nearly enough to have it uniform.

My question is what is the best settings to try to shoot a large group with and have it come out the best.

I've tried closing down the F stop, and bumping up the flash, but the same results happen, people turn out blurry, or grainy. The wide angle lens allows me to get closer, but I still need to be a good 20-30 ft away to get everyone in. Should I get them closer together to help with the distance issue? Guess I might have just answered my own question. Just kinda hard working with 80-90 plus people.


What I'm working with:

Nikon D100
Tamron 11-18mm F4.5-5.6 to F22-29 (also have sigma 28-300 F3.5-6.3)
Nikon Speed Light SB-800



Thanks for any help guys.



.

[White92]

You must have good lighting. And I recommend getting them close as possible without crushing them! Camera is not the hottest either. When I know I'll be doing group shots I use my Rebel EOS 35mm with HD 100 speed film.

[Z0RR0]

I didn't see a tripod mentioned ...

[jmccalip]

I was going to type something up, but this seems a lot more informative than my post. It's from a camera forum.

Anita, you appear to be a pretty experienced photographer so please bear with me if some of the following seems too elementary.

Sounds like a problem with technique or, possibly, a lens problem, not a camera problem.

If shooting from a tripod helps at all, even the tiniest bit, the reason is because you're shaking the camera a little while handholding it. Camera motion blur can be solved with a faster shutter speed, flash (bright enough to exclude ambient light) or some sort of support - tripod, monopod, etc.

Autofocusing problems with the D70 are often, and often incorrectly, attributed to "backfocus." While some D70 bodies did have a problem with backfocusing, it's likely the vast majority of problems were due to operator error. (BTW, the same "problem" has been raised with other brands of dSLRs and the solution was usually to become better acquainted with the camera's AF system.)

If the manually focused photos are sometimes slightly sharper than the autofocused photos, it's a matter of learning to use the best autofocus option for the task at hand. For example, continuous servo (AF-C) is useful for following action but less useful for photographing stationary groups of people or objects. Switch to single serve (AF-S).

Also, single area AF will be more useful than the other options for photographing stationary subjects. Dynamic area and closest subject options are better suited to active subjects.

If possible (I'm not sure about the D70) assign autofocusing to only the AE-L/AF-L button. This will prevent the shutter release button from adjusting focus. While less convenient, it's better suited to precise focusing for certain situations.

As a basic technique (which you can modify as you experiment), choose the single central sensor as your focus point. Lock it in so no other sensor will be activated. Aim at the desired focus point - even if it's not the desired composition - and press the AE-L/AF-L button to lock focus. Then recompose as desired and press the shutter release button. This should eliminate focus error as a problem.

The old standard rule of thumb for the appropriate shutter speed is to match the shutter speed to the focal length of the lens: no slower than 1/60th second for 50mm, 1/30th second for 28mm, 1/500th for 500mm, etc. There are problems with this rule of thumb, tho'. It was developed before zooms lenses were popular. A typical 28mm prime lens doesn't weigh much so some folks don't have any trouble handholding with a wide angle at 1/30th second. But nowadays there are superzooms covering from wide angle to super telephoto. They're heavier than some primes and longer, which throws off the center of gravity. So with zooms it's a good idea to double the minimum shutter speed - 1/60th for wide angle, 1/250th for moderate telephoto, etc.

Also physical limitations can dictate the minimum shutter speed. I can't handhold as steadily as I could years ago. So the old rule of thumb isn't practical for me. VR can help, but still won't help with subject motion blur at slower shutter speeds. Sure, I can handhold at 1/15th second, but that doesn't make the basketball players run any slower.

The lens may also be a factor. The D70 usually was packaged with the 18-70/3.5-4.5 DX AF-S Nikkor. This is a pretty good consumer grade midrange zoom, but it's a bit overrated, IMO. It gives the illusion of excellent sharpness but it's an illusion. The lens is very contrasty with excellent color saturation and high resistance to flare. All of these factors make for snappy looking photos. But the resolution isn't that high until the lens is stopped down to around f/8. And while the lens may be acceptably sharp wide open at some focal lengths, it's inconsistent and varies throughout the focal range.

Since it isn't always practical to stop down to f/8 or so, the best solution is to get a better lens.

Also, digital captures vary tremendously in apparent sharpness. Before dSLRs became affordable folks who used non-interchangeable lens digicams were accustomed to sharp prints right out of the camera because these cameras did a lot of in-camera image processing. Most dSLRs do less in-camera processing by default, especially with RAW files.

Even then it varies considerably. Images from my D2H are inherently sharper out of the box than some other dSLRs because the D2H had a unique mission: It was geared toward photojournalists, most of whom shoot JPEGs for publication ready output.

Photographers who choose higher resolution dSLRs usually want more control over their output and prefer to handle sharpening during post processing. Without sharpening photos from the D70 may appear soft. If sharpening is applied at the wrong stage the results may be unsatisfactory. And there are wildly varying approaches to digital sharpening, with so many tools available it could take you months to evaluate each.

I suspect a lot of digital photos in print (not onscreen) are undersharpened because the usual tools included with most photo editors are too hamfisted for the kind of results most folks want. Until fairly recently most image editing programs, even older versions of Photoshop, included only one or two global sharpening options, which increased apparent noise as well as edge sharpening; and USM (USeless photo Mangling), which tends to produce halos and artifacts before satisfactory sharpness is achieved. That's why there are so many aftermarket tools and independently produced plugins. The problem isn't that photographers don't know how to use USM properly. It's that USM is a crappy tool, a bastardized kludge misappropriated from a wet darkroom technique that very, very few traditional photographers ever were able to master. So don't blame yourself for sharpening problems. Blame the useless tools. But there are good sharpening tools available - even the low end Corel Paint Shop Pro X has a very good sharpening option, high pass sharpening, that easily provides an appearance of satisfactorily selective sharpening without resorting to layers or other complications and without excessive global sharpening that produces artifacts in blue skies, faces, etc.

Anyway, hope some of this is helpful. Judging from your website you obviously know how to take great photos. The trick is just making the tools work for you and not the other way 'round.

[98JEEPTJ]

It's a combination of things really. Use a tripod if your not. Your probably going to need better quality glass. I'm not a Nikon person so maybe sombody could help you with some settings possibly.