[TOUGEFC]

Tell me about it!

Im getting there early so i can test various set-up's.

[audiobomber]

Tell me about it!

Im getting there early so i can test various set-up's.

It's great that you have this opportunity beforehand. If the ceiling is white, you might also try mounting your flash on the light stand, no umbrella, bounce the flash off the ceiling.

After you shoot with off-camera flash, I would recommend you try a very simple setup; use your flash on the camera. Take a meter reading with ambient light only, then use similar settings with the flash on and fllash compensation set for -1 or -2 Ev, to let in a lot of ambient light. Use an Omni-bounce or even the flash built-in diffuser. This will give you a very different look than the off-camera lighting, and also gives another opportunity to keep everyone for another little session, "Hey everybody, before you go, I just want to try one more thing". A second or even third lighting setup gives you more photos to choose from and a good excuse to continue.

PS Prepare or add-lib some one-line jokes and shoot a couple while people are laughing.

[TOUGEFC]

Well i did the shoot! Got to the house and setup a few different ways with my one flash and umbrella and fired off some test shots, and straight away i said nup this isnt going to work in here for large groups, i may have been fine for single portraits but groups no way, and got them all to go to the park nearby, the 3 original shots planed turned into about 10 scenes with different family members etc...
I used the A28, A50 and FA77, the FA77 produced the best results (as expected) then the A50 then the A28, overall the shots came out pretty well i think, i processed them as natural, black and white and sepia, and have emailed them the samples so im waiting to hear back from them, but i showed them a few on the camera's lcd and their were quite pleased with what they saw.

The hardest shots was the kids! They were tired hungry and half of them were upset.

Thanks for the help guys, i think my first shoot was a successful one, and was a good learning experience for me too. I will post up a few samples soon...

[TOUGEFC]

Heres a couple of the natural samples
I probably could have worked on the postioning a bit better.

[audiobomber]

You nailed the lighting. The positioning is good, but I would crop all of these to remove as much background as possible. Your 28mm seems pretty soft. Have you checked it against your kit lens?

[rparmar]

I agree with all those comments. My experience with the A28 is not super-positive. It's an OK lens but I would prefer different.

[RyanW]

I don't have any tips, but this site can be helpful for ideas to avoid
AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com