HELP

[pro]

I have been asked to take pics at a halloween party of all the guest as they arrive. I will be shooting in a garage at dusk/night with garage lights. I have a tripod and a canon 50d and that is it.. no accessories extra flash (only the cameras built in flash) or studio lights.

PLEASE help with technique on how to make this shoot a success.

Thanks

[rainer]

Not much to go on. Assuming you have a standard Lense and not a fast lense such as an F2.8?
I never used or owned a D50 and I am not sure how far you can push the ISO setting on that without too much grain showing. The higher the ISO number the more light sensitivity for the sensors.
I figure you should be ok at least on 800 ISO but test it at home first and see if you can pop it up even higher. Do a dummy run and check the results on your computer. Set it to minimum of 60'th of sec keeping in mind that you are fairly steady with your camera when taking a shot. Use the Studio Lights (regardless if you have Studio Flash or not. At least it will bump up extra light for you. Just a mater of aiming them to where you want the light to be and hope that a higher ISO setting and that will be enough. That's about all I can suggest.
good luck"
On the other hand" With the use of a Tripod you can pop your shutter speed down to some 20'th of a sec. Just ask people not to move about when usining such a low shutter speed unless you want to show some sort of movement effect.
Hope it helps"
Rainer

[pro]

Thank you for the notes! I will give some of them a shot in practice!

One thing you missed was that I DO NOT have studio lights... SO a concern I have is the lighting.. Any recomendations for the lighting?? It is in a garage, so there is an overhead bulb and that is about it.

lens is an 20-200mm f3.5 kit lens

[RocketRick]

Originally Posted by pro

Thank you for the notes! I will give some of them a shot in practice!

One thing you missed was that I DO NOT have studio lights... SO a concern I have is the lighting.. Any recomendations for the lighting?? It is in a garage, so there is an overhead bulb and that is about it.

lens is an 20-200mm f3.5 kit lens

Go to the Home Despot (or local equivalent), and buy a couple of the clamp-on reflectors that hold a light bulb. These generally sell for $5-$10 each. Put lights in them. They have some nice bright daylight-balanced coiled fluorescent bulbs that run nice and cool, now, or you can stick with regular tungsten bulbs, if your budget won't cover the fluorescents.

Clamp the lights to something on either side of the entry path, with their angles adjusted to give the best light that you can manage on someone standing in your designated "photo spot". Take some test shots ahead of time to ensure that things are set up the way you need them.

If you're feeling really creative, you can find a way to hang something like a white plastic garbage bag in front of one (or both) of your lights to act as an el-cheapo softbox or umbrella. If it were me, I'd consider setting a hard (unmodified) light above and off to one side of the entrance (at about a 45 degree angle), and use the softened light down low, a little further back, and just slightly off to the other side to provide a nice even fill light in the shadows. For Halloween, the harsh shadows of the bare main light would probably work quite well to give a menacing air to most costumes.

If you can only afford a single light, set it high to one side, angled the same way as in the two-light setup I described, and place a fill reflector of some sort on the opposite side. This can be as simple as a couple of pieces of white posterboard or butcher paper taped to the opposite wall just in front of the photo spot. Make sure that the light is angled to catch both the subject and the white wall.

Mark the "spot" on the floor with a duct tape "X", and stand far enough back to use your lens at around 70-100mm equivalent focal length, to avoid weird perspective issues (unless you want them, for effect!). With a bare 75W or 100W main light, positioned about 4 feet ahead of the subject, and up to one side, you should probably have no trouble shooting at f/4.0 or so with reasonable shutter speeds (1/30s or faster) at ISO 200 or 400.

One more thing: if there's any chance of your light sources getting in to your frame, set up some sort of "gobo" to block your view of them. A gobo is just a go-between light blocker of some sort. Staple some cardboard to a rafter, tilt the reflector more forwards, or something. You don't want to see the light in your viewfinder, as light from your sources hitting the lens can cause flare and a loss of contrast.

Have fun!

- Rick

[pro]

very informative.. thank you!!

[RocketRick]

Originally Posted by pro

very informative.. thank you!!

You're welcome!

I also forgot to give you the most important advice: set up in similar conditions at home as far in advance as you can manage, and practice, practice, practice!

You'll work out the setup kinks -- for example, if you find that you need brighter light bulbs, or need to reposition them further away (to make them dimmer), or you need to position them down low, instead of up high, to make them more "menacing", then you can find that out before the "big day". Also, you'll get more familiar with your equipment, and will be able to "dial in" the necessary exposure and other settings much faster if you know what types of changes you'll be needing to make. Familiarity breeds competence!

Have fun, and be sure to post a few photos back here after the event, so that we can see the final setup and the results.

- Rick

[pro]

Heading over to the place of the event now to do some practice.. will get some pics up here soon..

[pro]

Ok.. so i used the advice and went to home depot to get some basic lighting.. let me know what you think..

These shots were at 1/60th ss, f4 around 35-50mm.. using a 28-135mm lens

ANY MORE ADVICE WOULD BE APPRECIATED!!

oH YEAH.. the bulbs in the overhead light set up are 100 watt compact florecent bulbs rated at 3500 kelvin (bright white)

I did get a flash for the camera.. its the canon 430ex II speedlight with a diffuser attached.

There are two incandesent bulbs on either side of the corn stalks with 60 watt bulbs

[erozier2]

This is going to sound counter intuitive, but kick up your ISO, and drop down your aperture. Your lens is sharpest if you stop it down by 1-2 stops. I've recently done some experimentation and I find that it's far easier to fix a high ISO, than a wide shutter.

At f/4, your only 1/3 a stop down from wide open. Try shooting between f/5 and f/7.1. Kick the ISO up a stop or two to compensate. This will help sharpen your images.