Advise for catwalks and low light group photography

Thirdfox

Hey guys,

I'm going to be shooting two mini events next week for our university newspaper and would like some advise:
1. Evening/night shot of a large group of people standing in a pretty much unlit square - this one looks like it's going to be difficult - I have a SB600 but I doubt that will light up many people (my editor suggested car lights? or maybe we could commandeer some spotlights)

Any advise for that? I don't have low light lens either (18-55 and 55-200vr).

2. Fashion catwalk thing...I've been told that the photographers will be positioned at the front - this leaves me in a dilemma, I wanted to use the 55-200 (superior image quality in my opinion) but being up close I'd probably need to use the 18-55. Or maybe I'll just be changing lenses all the time? Any general tips about fashion/catwalk photography? Flash photography is fine right?

Thanks!

*checks flame suit is still on* (joking reference to Halifax thread)

stcstc

why not go buy a bunch of those 500w outdoor floodlights, like security lights


they will cost about 10 euro each and just attach some tracing paper or something to the front to soften the light for your group shot

as for the fashion shoot, i wouldnt think you have time to be changing lenses, why not see if you could borrow or beg a second body and stick one lens on each

Thirdfox

Interesting idea - we'll see if college staff/security has some on hand.

I think the other photographers I know shoot Canon so no second body. But what do you think would be more of an impact for the paper - head and shoulders model shot or full length portrait?

I'd only need to select one shot anyway so maybe I can take a few with the telephoto and switch to the wide for the rest. I can change a lens safely in about 15 seconds in a rush...

Thanks for the lighting tip - I'll pass it on to the editor.

pete4130

See if you can borrow some more flashes, the Sb600's and sb800's can be remotely fired from some Nikon DSLR's so that could sort your lighting problem out.

As for full length or H&S portraits, get the safe shot first which IMo would be the full length, it leaves you with the option to crop if you need to (if its for a college paper, printed on newspaper the crop should be good enough quality).

Thirdfox

Good idea - I also just remembered that for some strange reason our frontpages' pictures pretty much has to be in portrait format and this fashion show might be eye-catching enough to be frontpage...

mikeanywhere

Keith,

Check out some of these catwalk shots, if you need anything else, then give me a holla.

Thirdfox

Who's Keith? (I assume you're addressing me?)

I'm Daniel, nice to meet you (good inspiration in your images by the way).

It looked like you were far back - what equipment were you using? Did you use flash?

mikeanywhere

Thirdfox wrote: »

I'm Daniel, nice to meet you (good inspiration in your images by the way).

It looked like you were far back - what equipment were you using? Did you use flash?

Sincere apologies Daniel, multi tasking on MSN & here at the same time.

Most shots done with the 70-200 as it meant I could move about and get various advantage points without worrying about friggin about and changing lenses. All handheld and shot in manual mode.

Thirdfox

No problems

Spot metering seems to be what I want too... what kind of shutter speed do I need to maintain to stop them while walking and what kind of speeds would I need to stop then while twirling?

mikeanywhere

So depends on the location as the lights at catwalk events can be real ****e. Also depends if you are using flash as that way you can more or less have it set at one setting all night if at the same spot.

I'll look at the exif data tomorrow and let you know what mine were shot at (all images on a different pc)

Thirdfox

Thanks Mike, appreciate it (don't put yourself through too much hassle though - this is just a student fashion exhibition/competition and it's for an university newspaper and I'm just an university student )

Borderfox

Last fashion show I did they didnt turn the full lights on till the show started so it was spot metering off the models, I was on my knees at the end of the runway looking up for some of the shots and then I used a 70-200 for some other angles. The large group why not make a feature of the darkness by shooting a long exposure and getting everybody to change places? otherwise you can hire out some really bright floodlights out of samhire?

Thirdfox

Well I had thought of the long exposure too, but thought against telling people not to move for 15 seconds...what do you mean by change places? Perhaps have one or two people stationary (so that their t-shirt is visible) and moving people in the background/foreground etc.?

Spot metering + some positive exposure compensation I'm thinking? I suppose it's somewhat like shooting a very slow moving sports scene...

pete4130

Thirdfox wrote: »

No problems

Spot metering seems to be what I want too... what kind of shutter speed do I need to maintain to stop them while walking and what kind of speeds would I need to stop then while twirling?

Generally as a rule, you need to match your shutter speed with your focal length, so for example, if you were shooting at 200mm (and I'm presuming your shooting on a camera with a 1.5 crop factor? So thats effectively 300mm with the crop factor), so you'd need to be getting shutter speeds of approximately 1/300th second.
The reason you need to match your shutter speed to your focal length is to stop any blur that comes from camera shake when using a telephoto lens. It can be hard to do this in low light, but you have the 55-200 VR which should help out alot for reducing camera shake!

To freeze the action you'd really be looking to have shutter speeds of faster than 1/60th second, obviously is the model is in the middle of an outlandish twirl at the end of the catwalk there would probably be some blur due to her fast movement at 1/60th second.