Best lens/settings for large group photos?

[Mateo1041]

Tell them to keep as still as possible, and then you can simply do facial transplants (if you want to take it to that level).

Hah, I'll probably be doing that. Done it before and it actually worked really well!

 

[Mateo1041]

Here is the 75 year old version they are looking to duplicate:

 

[Johndow]

For a panorama you must use full manual to keep the exposure identical on each of the shots to stich together. You should also set the focus manually to ensure autofocus doesnt shift from one shot to another.

 

[greybeard]

In my opinion, don't go any wider than 24mm or you may see some wide angle distortion. Use a medium aperture setting like f/8 and if outside use flash set to -1 to -2 as fill for the shadows and to add twinkle to it. This works for me.

 

[dave12b]

Dumb question but, when your planning on stitching a group photo like this together, is it best to take multiple photos from the same position or do you move latterly across plane of the image taking the shots in the center of each "portion".

Sent from my LG-LS720 using Tapatalk

 

[Mateo1041]

Dumb question but, when your planning on stitching a group photo like this together, is it best to take multiple photos from the same position or do you move latterly across plane of the image taking the shots in the center of each "portion".

I actually thought of the exact same question tonight on my test run! Stitching seems to work very well though when staying at the same spot. Here's what I came up with from three separate photos. That's my daughter helping as a test subject. Hugin is amazing software.

 

[Mateo1041]

What do you think? I actually did have better luck with a medium aperture. This is just a quick composition, but I wanted to make sure I could stitch together ok.

 

[Mateo1041]

And zoomed 50%. Think it's focused enough? I admittedly did unsharp mark and I think it looks better.

 

[dave12b]

How did the shoot go?

 

[Scoody]

Last Saturday I did the Freshman, JV and Varsity Football teams. I did the individual and team shots. The coaches sat them in the bleachers and I used my 50mm while standing on the drum major's stand.

 

[unpopular]

Anyone remember the Noblex? Those things were so friggin' awesome.

 

[Mateo1041]

Pretty good I think! I've been touching up and swapping some heads all week. A few things like sunglasses that I would have changed (didn't think about it until after), but otherwise fairly close to what I was going for. I took 87 photos in all with some of those just being myself to photoshop in after. Started at 1:07pm and ended at 1:12pm.



I had some distortion on the left side with people looking larger than they probably need to be, so tried fixing that. I took 5 shots wide to get the panorama and stood in the same place at 35mm. ISO was 200 and aperture F9. I used auto-focus. But I wonder if moving from side to side would give better results vs standing in one place. I stood about 15-20 feet back?

What do you think?

 

[Mateo1041]

And yes, the vehicle is intended. Per client's orders to mimic the original. Kind of neat I think, actually.

 

[MrCntry]

I had a feeling the front car was on purpose. How do you feel about the cars behind it? Seems it might have been nice if they weren't there. Hard to work with a group that large.
Just had a family reunion and it was difficult to just deal with 75 people. Lol

 

[Mateo1041]

I had a feeling the front car was on purpose. How do you feel about the cars behind it? Seems it might have been nice if they weren't there. Hard to work with a group that large.
Just had a family reunion and it was difficult to just deal with 75 people. Lol

That's a good point. Agreed, I'd probably prefer if those other cars weren't in the background. I think the biggest challenge was in ensuring everyone was mostly well positioned. At first the crowd went way too far to the left and I had to move people to the right closer to the car. I felt bad though because they were in their 80's and on folding chairs.