[dane.dawg]

There is a lot of great photographers who visit this forum.
I have been asked to take a group shot at work which has 100 employees. I work at a nursery so the background should be good and I will be using a scaffold to be 8 or 12 feet above everyone. My question are how far away should the scaffold be? should I use flashes {I own four}
I will have one K-3 with Sigma 10-20mm and the other K-3 with Tamron 16-50mm and bring the Tamron 28-75mm just in case.
I have only have a half hour to do this on a friday afternoon when everyone wants to go home.
Any input would be great because I would like to take a decent photo.
Cheers Travis

[rkappleby]

There is a lot of great photographers who visit this forum.
I have been asked to take a group shot at work which has 100 employees. I work at a nursery so the background should be good and I will be using a scaffold to be 8 or 12 feet above everyone. My question are how far away should the scaffold be? should I use flashes {I own four}
I will have one K-3 with Sigma 10-20mm and the other K-3 with Tamron 16-50mm and bring the Tamron 28-75mm just in case.
I have only have a half hour to do this on a friday afternoon when everyone wants to go home.
Any input would be great because I would like to take a decent photo.
Cheers Travis

That's hardly any pressure Travis, good luck, I wish I had some advice but you are pretty capable. With that big a group and afternoon light I doubt the flashes are going to be much help. Show us what you come up with.
Robert

[seventhdr]

I think that you need to figure out the volume of space that 100 employees will fit into. Map that out on the ground and then see just what space you have available in front of the group. That will inform you of the angle of view that you will need. Then you can look at your three lenses that you listed and choose the one the fits with that angle of view.

As for flashes - once you have figures out where you will be standing, you will know the distance to the group. From that you could work out what your flash settings could be by checking the flash power against the apertures that you have available. That should tell you if the flashes will cover your group.

I'd also look at the likely available light you would have for an ambient exposure and whether there are any shadows that you need to fill with some flash.

Regards

Chris

[calsan]

You want to make sure that the afternoon sun will neither be behind the subjects and also not in their eyes.

It's inevitable that 5-10 people will have blinked their eyes closed in any single shot.
Set the drive mode to high speed and fire off a lot of shots at once - so you can go around and photoshop out closed eyes by using layer masks.
Other trick is to ask people to keep their eyes closed and then all open them when you say, then you wait a second or so then click. Should avoid most blinking this way.

[dane.dawg]

Thanx guys, I guess I will pass on the flashes since its just moree to set up and screw up.
Cheers Travis

[bdery]

If you're outside, skip the flashes but make sure that the Sun is not directly in their faces, so they don't close their eyes.

[ramseybuckeye]

If you have time take the cameras and lenses out to where you want to do it preferably with the scaffold in place. Then test your field of view and set up some boundaries to keep people within, otherwise they will just keep spreading out. At a nursery I would think you may have a chance to use plants rows of plants for the boundaries, anything will work, even tape. I've done many of these large group shots and that is one of the biggest problems. If you have the opportunity to select the place and setup you will have a much better chance of being successful. Try to enlist one or two people to help line the troops up. You will have people that will try to hide behind others, and occasionally that tall person who wants to be in the front Let them know you are taking multiple shots and fire off several. Let them know you are not finished until you really are, many will start walking, especially near quitting time. You will have people blinking and looking to the side, with 100 people and many don't want to be there, it will happen. Don't worry about it, do your best, maybe you can photoshop some needed repairs. You'll do fine.

[kafenio]

Be there an hour before to get your setup right.

When the People arrive: Tell them to snuggle up as closely as possible. When theyre done: ask them to get even closer. Small people to the front, tall ones to the back. Watch out for belts hanging down. Especially beige ones...

Then ask if everyone can see the lens of your camera. Take multiple shots, ask the people to freak out for half a second without laughing.

All will be good.

[rbefly]

Hi Travis,
Don't sweat it too much, that just makes it worse!
I agree with doing any prep you can, even a small handful of 'helpers' can mark out a rough rectangle for you, while you view from the scaffold.
And I would take my favorite flash with new batteries, just in case. Even a brightly-lit scene can usually benefit from some fill and balancing-out of any heavy shadows or directional ambient. Plus, the 'ol eye-sparkle!
But the key is multiple shots and quick adjustments; once you have the basic framing/composition set, f-stop nailed for DoF, stick with that and adjust shutter or ISO to suit. If you use flash, bracket those too. Warn them as you begin, you'll be taking multiple frames 'for a couple minutes, bear with me!' etc.
Tell bad jokes, keep it loose, have fun. The rest is bracketing, common sense and PP.
Ron