Quick Help: Couple Portraiture

[tevo]

My Homecoming dance is tonight, and my date, my friend, and his date are all coming to my house. I'd like to be able to take some "prom-ish" pictures. I have a 3 foot trigger, a tripod, a flash, a D7000, 18-105 3.5-5.6 kit, nifty fifty f/1.8, and scenery. What would you recommend?


Dance is at 7, people will be coming over maybe 4 or 5

 

[tirediron]

Find a location you like, set your camera up on a tripod, position the three people, ensuring you leave room for yourself. Use the largest aperture you can (I'd go with the 50mm) WHILE ENSURING YOU HAVE SUFFICIENT DoF TO KEEP EVERYONE IN SHARP FOCUS, and place the flash about 30 degrees off lens axis to the left or right with some sort of diffuser if at all possible. Trip the camera with the self-timer rather than the trigger.

 

[tevo]

Find a location you like, set your camera up on a tripod, position the three people, ensuring you leave room for yourself. Use the largest aperture you can (I'd go with the 50mm) WHILE ENSURING YOU HAVE SUFFICIENT DoF TO KEEP EVERYONE IN SHARP FOCUS, and place the flash about 30 degrees off lens axis to the left or right with some sort of diffuser if at all possible. Trip the camera with the self-timer rather than the trigger.

Beautiful. Thanks tirediron

 

[Derrel]

Get a parental unit to shoot the pics!!!!

 

[tevo]

Get a parental unit to shoot the pics!!!!

My parental unit can barely use a P&S haha. I can get it setup, but theres no need - I have a timer on the camera. I was just asking about how I should set up the lighting. Any way i can DIY diffuse the light?

 

[tirediron]

Tupperware, bleach bottle, tissue paper....

 

[tevo]

Tupperware, bleach bottle, tissue paper....

There will be decent light outside, and the camera is a good 10 feet away from the subject, will the flash still be able to hit them ?

 

[tevo]

For anyone who cares:

I'm the spiffy one on the right (;





I used a translucent tupperware lid to diffuse the light, skin tones came out nice. Crop was awkward, but this is from facebook. Thanks again for all your help!

 

[Kerbouchard]

Well, at least it's in foucs and exposed properly.

Next time, try to give us more than 30 minutes before your shoot. Heck, I spend the day before a shoot getting batteries charged, formatting memory cards, getting everything set up how I want it. If I know where the location is going to be, I will take test shots just to make sure everything is good to go well before the subect shows up.

Honestly, knowing that you know the resources that are available to you, it baffles me that you would ask for advice at 3:30 about a shoot that you are having at 4, especially since you have obviously known about this function for some time..

Maybe you were too busy drawing on your hand to worry about what the shots would look like? Oh, well, like I said, at least it's in focus and reasonably exposed.

 

[tyler_h]

Why did you shoot it at 28mm? Didn't have room for the 50mm and open up your aperture to ~f/4 or so to throw the background oof?

Also;
"Focus Distance: 22387m" lol

 

[gsgary]

You were the lucky one, she got the short straw

 

[vtf]

Well, at least it's in foucs and exposed properly.

Next time, try to give us more than 30 minutes before your shoot. Heck, I spend the day before a shoot getting batteries charged, formatting memory cards, getting everything set up how I want it. If I know where the location is going to be, I will take test shots just to make sure everything is good to go well before the subect shows up.

Honestly, knowing that you know the resources that are available to you, it baffles me that you would ask for advice at 3:30 about a shoot that you are having at 4, especially since you have obviously known about this function for some time..

Maybe you were too busy drawing on your hand to worry about what the shots would look like? Oh, well, like I said, at least it's in focus and reasonably exposed.

exif data shows 1:05am this morning.

 

[tevo]

Well, at least it's in foucs and exposed properly.

Next time, try to give us more than 30 minutes before your shoot. Heck, I spend the day before a shoot getting batteries charged, formatting memory cards, getting everything set up how I want it. If I know where the location is going to be, I will take test shots just to make sure everything is good to go well before the subect shows up.

Honestly, knowing that you know the resources that are available to you, it baffles me that you would ask for advice at 3:30 about a shoot that you are having at 4, especially since you have obviously known about this function for some time..

Maybe you were too busy drawing on your hand to worry about what the shots would look like? Oh, well, like I said, at least it's in focus and reasonably exposed.

We shot it at 6:30ish,uploaded at around 1. This wasn't for anything important, just to have so we could remember the event. This was cropped from a picture I took of all four of us, using my 18-105. I should have made the BG out of focus but didn't really think of it. Will do it next time! Idk why I put that it would be at 4 or 5, since I knew they were coming at 6, my bad :S

 

[tevo]

You were the lucky one, she got the short straw

hahah jerk ! -___-

 

[Derrel]

You were the lucky one, she got the short straw

tevo--take it from gsgary--he is an EXPERT on getting the short straw...born in the UK, shoots Kwanon, likes sissy futbol (soccer), has an ugly dog,etc,etc. drawing the shorts straw is the story of gsgary's entire life. you'd know that if you ever saw a pic of his mug. "wink"