minimum self timer group portrait shutterspeed?

[schumionbike]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask but here go. I want to take group picture with my class at school. So I'm gonna be using timer cause I want to be in the picture too. I'm hoping it'll be 50 people or so. I think that lighting condition would be 400 iso, 1/30-1/50 shutter at 2.8. I want to cut the iso to 200 since my digital camera get pretty noisy at 400 but do you think 1/25-1/25 shutter would be too low and might ending up getting some motion blur because people just can't really keep that still??? What would is lowest shutter speed you would use in a situation like that??

I mean, I have taken self portrait without obvious motion blur by setting the shutter to 1 second but for some reason, I think that was kinda lucky and it's easier to do when it is just me. 50 people could be interesting.

Hopefully someone can help me out, thanks in advance.

 

[Big Mike]

Yes, I think that 1/25 will be too slow. I would recommend at least 1/60 and go faster if you can.

Also, when shooting a group, you want to make sure that everyone is in focus and F2.8 is a rather large aperture which will give you a shallower Depth of Field.

What type of camera do you have? F2.8 on a DLSR might not be enough DOF for a large group shot, unless you could get everyone to be roughly the same distance away from the camera.
A digi-cam, on the other hand, has a smaller sensor which gives you a deeper DOF, so you might be OK.

It's understandable that you want to use a lower ISO to avoid noise...but noise is better than blur...so I would favor a good shutter speed. Or course, a better way would be to add more light or go where the light is better.

 

[schumionbike]

Hey Big Mike, I have a Kodak Z710 with 1/2.5 in ccd. I'm guessing that a 2.8 on my camera would be around an f11 on the dslr. I was thinking using f2.8 with infinity focus. I want to shoot the picture in the class room so you know, there is not a lot of choices. lol. Thanks for the reply!!!