'Narrow' - But Wide Angle?

[mmiller741]

Hi there,

I am a teacher that takes a lot of large group shots in front of a 20' wide green screen. I have a 10-18mm Canon lens and 18-55mm Canon lens. These are just not working for me. The 10-18mm gets me the wide angle I need, but I get too much background (basically, the lens is capturing more than just the green screen. The 18-55mm captures just the green screen in the background, but it's nowhere near wide enough to get the whole group. Any recommendations on lenses or settings for me. If it helps, I have a Canon Rebel t3i. The images below were taken with the 10-18mm lens. I wound up cropping the subjects and then editing those images in Photokey Pro.

 

[chuasam]

You'd need an anamorphic lens

 

[480sparky]

Use the 10-18 to get the width you need, then crop out the top & bottom in post.

 

[Designer]

You might have an issue with your flash not illuminating wide enough. Use more flashes.

 

[astroNikon]

When you take the photo there is a digital sensor which is rectagular.

Thus each photo will have the same length and width irregardless of how close or far you are from the subject.

Cropping, as you have done, allows you to get rid of extra space here and there. You camera may have some cropping ability in the menus. On Nikons there is a "Retouch" menu that allows one to edit pictures in camera - I'm not sure if your Canon has that ability.

 

[mmiller741]

Thanks everyone. I definitely should have set up my lights for the greenscreen. I was just too lazy last night. ;-)

astroNikon - I'll have to look into the camera options. I was hoping to not have to edit every picture. Last night was a small district event of less than 40 shots. Other events I help with are upwards of 150+ pictures - that's a lot of cropping. So without a lens fix, maybe I should be asking for any batch cropping software?

 

[astroNikon]

Adobe LightRoom can do batch cropping, but is not free.
Apparently GIMP, which is free, can also do this but you have to write a script for it (I'm not a Gimp user, so I really don't know).

I just did a shoot for sports & action shots. I did a lot of "sync" cropping. I set up one photo the way I like and then I sync a bunch of photos with the same settings (exposure, crop, etc). It saves a lot of time in editing.
600+ shots, 150 final selected shots. This process cuts down editing time tremendously.

 

[robbins.photo]

Thanks everyone. I definitely should have set up my lights for the greenscreen. I was just too lazy last night. ;-)

astroNikon - I'll have to look into the camera options. I was hoping to not have to edit every picture. Last night was a small district event of less than 40 shots. Other events I help with are upwards of 150+ pictures - that's a lot of cropping. So without a lens fix, maybe I should be asking for any batch cropping software?

Ok, well my own solution isn't quite so high tech, and not 100% certain how much room you have to work with.. but if it were me, I'd probably fix this with a roll of masking tape.

Take the two trash cans you have there and set up your camera on a tripod. setup the shot like you normally would, using the two trash cans as "people" standing on opposite sides of the shot. Line up your shot using the tripod, and see how much of your background is filled by the green screen. Move the camera into a position where the green screen fills the entire background.

Then move the two trash cans until they are visible at the outer edges of the shot. Mark the location of your tripod and the location of the trash cans using the masking tape.

That way when you need to take a shot you can drop your tripod on the spot you marked for it, then just make sure everyone in front of the green screen lines up between the two tape lines that you established using the trash cans. Your background should be all green screen and everyone should be visible in the shot.

 

[407370]

Thanks everyone. I definitely should have set up my lights for the greenscreen. I was just too lazy last night. ;-)

astroNikon - I'll have to look into the camera options. I was hoping to not have to edit every picture. Last night was a small district event of less than 40 shots. Other events I help with are upwards of 150+ pictures - that's a lot of cropping. So without a lens fix, maybe I should be asking for any batch cropping software?

Batch cropping is really easy with IRFANVIEW and it is free.

 

[Dave442]

I would also do the batch crop in LightRoom. I used IRFANVIEW before going to LR and still use it for a number of actions so for a free option I can also recommend it, but now I find it harder to use for doing basic photo edits.

 

[mmiller741]

Robbins.Photo - I will have to play with your idea. I didn't have a ton of time to play last night, but I'm afraid I'll lose to0 much of the width if I move that close to the screen. I really do need the whole 20'. Other than the picture I posted and a few others, the groups were between 10-20 people.

407370 and Dave - I'll have to check out IRFANVIEW too. I started looking at LightRoom, and that is definitely an option - just would like to avoid the cost. ;-)

Thanks again.

 

[Antithesis]

A wider angle lens (10-18) will make whatever is closest to the frame appear "wider" in the final images, and whatever is farther to appear "smaller". It's just how perspective works. So, you either need a bigger backdrop or need to be able to step farther away. If there are people spilling out on either side of the backdrop when you are looking straight at it from the farthest point you are shooting from, you will need to move people inwards or get a bigger backdrop regardless of lens.