Ramblings of an impatient photographer.

[CuriousMike]

TLDR; Shutter speed... it's for real. Location. You should know it. Don't try to do too many things at once.

I've always been an impatient person. As I've aged, it's softened... but I have the not-so-flattering "hurry up" mentality. In some ways, photography has actually slowed me down... taking photos of nature helps.
But my bad habits returned at the wrong time...

I was asked about two weeks ago to take photos at my sons "pre-prom" that was scheduled to happen yesterday.

Parents had picked a park that I was unfamiliar with.
The would students show up to the park an hour before they needed to leave to the actual prom.

Pre-planning:
I'm not a portrait photographer. It's a thing. I've read tidbits in magazines and books, but haven't practiced.
The main problems I saw was
a) I have no experience on how to direct people to look good.
b) I don't have experience with group shots - I was worried about keeping everyone in focus.
Thank god for the great oracle in the sky ( google ), I read a few pointers on directing people and another great-short article on group shots ( hint: dof is always greater back than forward - don't put focus spot on person in back, put focus point on person closer-ish to you.)
I recently dabbled in off-camera flash, and thought I'd pull it with me... because hay, the 20 photos I've taken with it gives me enough experience to use it.

I brought my 85 f/1.8 and 24-120 f/4 with me.
The 85 being my newest lens, but also the one oft repeated as "the portrait focal length."
The 24-120 would be the group photo workhorse.

Problem #1:
I arrived about 20 minutes early.
The park was packed with students from all different schools who had the same idea regarding pre-prom photography. It was crazy. It took longer way longer than expected to find parking. I didn't get to the park early - I go there "on time."

* This was a problem because it ultimately led to me being squeezed for time.

Problem #2:
I'd never been to the park before. It was a particularly large park, but I was already running behind, and scouting a viable area was made worse by the fact there were already so many groups formed. Lots of possible locations were already clogged with families and their students. I found what I thought was be a workable locale, with as few distracting background objects as possible. I got the students to follow me to the far edge of the park where I decided was "it."

*This was a problem because I had no idea where to go, and wasted more time looking for a workable solution. I couldn't know of any better spots because I'd never been there before. No idea what lighting was going to be like.

Problem #3:
My son and his girlfriend -- without question, my most important subjects -- went first. In retrospect, the obviousness of not having them go first is obvious. I threw on the 85mm, and worked them as individuals. My basic process was 1) vertical - full length photos, 2) vertical -belly button up 3) horizontal belly button up. I'd take 3-4 images in each orientation, then move it up. My basic posing skills "don't have your hands flat at your sides" ( and even then, telling someone "don't have your hands flat at your sides" isn't the right way to convey the message - I learned that by about the 5th girl - it doesn't make them feel great. Rather, just say "put your hands on your hips ( behind you etc ) )
Well, the little thing called 1/focal length = shutter speed is tattooed on my forehead. Except when I'm feeling excited, rushed, other.
I ended up with most of my son+girlfriend at something like 1/50 at 85mm and there was visible image softness because of that. Luckily, burst shooting 3-4 images for each orientation always got me one that was "least soft" - but goddamnit I fucked this one up.

* When shooting with an incredible camera like the Nikon D610, never-ever-never feel bad about boosting ISO. I had started at 100, and by the end of the shoot (light had faded quite a bit ) I was at 800, 1600 and the images still look awesome.
I should have just ensured shutter speed was 2 or 3 times focal length.
Noise can be dealt with, softness ... not so easy.

Problem #4
At some point, I decided to pull out the umbrella + off-camera flash.
I'll just summarize the problems with this
1- not experienced enough to use it correctly
2- didn't bother going to Manual mode to set shutter to expose for background, while using flash as exposure for the person. I just left it in A mode.
3- didn't bother setting ISO down to something reasonable since I was using flash.
4. when I thought I wasn't using the flash anymore, it was still popping off and over-exposing certain images.

*I did get a few very good photos with the flash. But it wasn't the right time or place for me to use it.

Problem #5
The background... varied depending on my angle to the participants. And that variation brought in some unsightly pieces.
I thought a shallow dof would cover up a lot of it ... and it helped, but not perfect.
Particularly for the floor-length verticals where I was much farther back, there was a much larger DOF and the background became more prominent. I think if I had a do-over, I would have been more aggressive with pulling the kids towards me (away from background ) and them pushing them back as necessary. We worked within the same 10 square feet and 30' radius for the whole hour.

Problem #6
Time. I photographed about 15 students/couples, and time flew. It seemed like 10 minutes had passed when one of the parents was telling me "wrap it up, they have to leave now!"

Side notes: I love Lightroom for it's ability to help me with exposure, highlights and shadows.
I hate Lightroom because it is so goddamn slow - the import process is painfully slow, once imported, just opening an image is slow. There are purportedly a dozen ways to speed up LR - why do I have to do any of them? Why isn't it configured to be fast out of the box?

Son - his face is soft - but not at web res

Son + GF - notice how shallow DOF helps, but banging highlights on stupid branches look stupid.

Couple - background is ugly - how could I see it but not see it?

Flash photo

 

[Spoooon]

Great use of flash on that last shot, looks very natural (you could be nitpicky I suppose). I usually go auto-ISO to 6400 and will either do aperture priority or manual when I need to worry about a minimum shutter speed.

I think you're being too hard on yourself as far as the outcome. Learning experience, shots looks decent, and I bet the kids don't give a crap.

I did a pre-prom thing, was chaos between the number of people, the weather (rain, so forced to shoot indoors at a house), and the number of parents who wanted to take their own pictures.

 

[Syborg1211]

Awesome write up, and something we need more of here. Kudos for posting this.

Shooting events is some tough stuff. That was just a small taste of what a wedding photographer goes through for several hours. There's so many different things coming at you as a photographer, and you'll only run into them all while running a shoot. Pretty frustrating but pretty awesome when you learn from the experience and become a better photographer afterwards. I would say the key thing you learned is to always scout the locations and have a plan!

I think those left-side highlights in the photo of your son and his date can be pretty easily removed in post.

 

[CuriousMike]

That was just a small taste of what a wedding photographer goes through for several hours.

When I was done, I thought, "Fuck me if I ever laugh at wedding photographers again."

It wasn't a paid gig, the kids were all running around with their iPhones taking spontaneous photos, it was fairly disorganized.

I over-thought and under-thought what it would entail.

I definitely learned a few things (about myself as well) - I should probably have an egg timer that goes off every 2 minutes reminding me to check camera settings next time.

 

[radhak]

I am only a wannabe photographer, but this relates.

Awesome thread - in both the information/insight you shared, and also topical. I could relate to each pitfall you faced, and so am sure your post could be a good reference point for anybody planning a photo shoot like this.

As for the pics, I loved all of them, but I agree the background can be distracting at times, like the 3rd picture. Your son's first picture is awesome - he looks ready for the world! if anything, I'd have moved the camera to the right a tad so that that he would be fully in front of that tree behind him, making it a background-screen for him. (Not that I would have thought of it then in a hurry, but probably for future reference).

Pic 2 is great because it shows both posing casually. And no, those highlights are not stupid - they actually give the picture some ethereal feel. I bet the girl loved this picture.

 

[balloonshark]

Thanks for taking the time to share your experience. I actually learned a thing or two.

* When shooting with an incredible camera like the Nikon D610, never-ever-never feel bad about boosting ISO. I had started at 100, and by the end of the shoot (light had faded quite a bit ) I was at 800, 1600 and the images still look awesome.
I should have just ensured shutter speed was 2 or 3 times focal length.
Noise can be dealt with, softness ... not so easy.

Do you mean a faster or slower shutter speed? And should you have changed the shutter speed in addition to the iso or in lieu of the iso?

I have no idea about this sites reputation but they do have a few "cheat sheets" for portrait photography. http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/.
Many of them are in their most popular cheat sheets http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2014/07/25/24-of-our-most-popular-photography-cheat-sheets/.

 

[Spoooon]

I'm assuming faster shutter to compensate for hand shaking, letting auto-ISO adjust for proper exposure.

 

[CuriousMike]

Do you mean a faster or slower shutter speed? And should you have changed the shutter speed in addition to the iso or in lieu of the iso?

I'm assuming faster shutter to compensate for hand shaking, letting auto-ISO adjust for proper exposure.

Spoooon nailed it - I wanted a faster shutter speed.
"Shutter speed 2 to 3 times focal length" is in response to the axiom "Your shutter speed (handheld) should be at least 1/focalLength".

In other words, if you're shooting at 55mm, you want a minimum of 1/55 second shutter speed to have a blur free photo.

The more zoom you have, the more it matters - so if you're shooting at 200mm, you want a minimum of 1/200 shutter speed.

I was shooting my 85mm lens, so I should have had 1/85 ( 1/100 ) at a minimum, and I frequently was shooting at 1/50 or 1/60. That's too slow of a shutter for me to have reliably sharp photos -

My point that I should have been twice that ( 1/190 -> 1/200 ) was simply insurance - really really make sure I don't worry about my shaking causing blurry photos.

In order for me to go from 1/50 ( at the base ISO of 100 ) up to 1/200, I would have needed to take my ISO from 100 -> 800 to get there. The trade off being higher ISO (800) would be grainier than ISO 100. But with the D610, ISO 800 still looks great ( compared to many other camera bodies.)

 

[blurredvision]

I definitely learned a few things (about myself as well) - I should probably have an egg timer that goes off every 2 minutes reminding me to check camera settings next time.

I could sit and go through everything I should check before shooting and as soon as I decide to press that shutter button for the first time, everything goes right out the window. At my daughter's second birthday party last month, I had it in my head to start checking histograms while shooting to make sure I'm getting my exposure correctly. I remember the last time I thought about it, it was when I was taking my camera out of my bag when I got to the place. I didn't think about it again until I started looking at my pictures in Lightroom.

 

[CuriousMike]

I could sit and go through everything I should check before shooting and as soon as I decide to press that shutter button for the first time, everything goes right out the window.

Honestly, that should be my posts summary.

 

[tdawg]

Good post, CuriousMike, and that last photo is really nice.

I've had the same issues that you experienced when asked to shoot people / families. When it's all documentary-style shooting, I'm fine and can produce some pleasing images, but with posed shots, I start faltering. I've missed a handful of shots due to soft focus when I don't remember to change camera settings for the situation, especially if the situation presents itself suddenly and I don't have time to think before pressing that shutter button.

 

[EOM]

Flash looked good on that last shot.
You were shooting around 60-70mm according to EXIF. Any reason you didn't step back use the 85mm f/1.8 and open up the aperture to blow out the background a bit more? You may have been space constrained from the sounds of that park. no 50mm?
You were using f/5.6, i assume because it's a bit sharper than at f//4?
for problem #5, blurring the background out is an equation of your aperture, distance between the camera and the subject, and the distance between the subject and the background....
General advice i've read for posing people: hide hands, especially with men. It's okay for women so long as they're holding something as a prop. If it bends, bend it... especially elbows. Twist the hips to "open" up their stance...have the body turned slightly away from the camera so their head is forced to turn to look at you(unless going for the gazing into the distance look )

You'll do better next time and i have to say the ones you posted look good!

 

[CuriousMike]

EOM - You highlighted another issue.

At some point during the shoot, I needed to take group photos because some were leaving.
I switched to the 24-120, and forgot to switch back to the 85 until later when I went back to individuals/couples.

I do have the 50 as well.
85 is touted as a good focal length for portraiture, and I have no reason to doubt it.
There's an annoying ying-yang with the 50 and 85 - that 35mm difference feels like I need to back up 10 feet when going from the 50 to the 85 !
On the other hand, I feel too close to people with the 50 and doing the "belly-button up" shots.

Honestly, if I was a paid guy and wasn't just "the dad with a big camera", I'd love to have two bodies - one with the 50 on it and the other with the 85.

OK - looking at the group shots, most were shot at ~ 35mm.
So maybe I could put my DX 35 into action next time...

 

[balloonshark]

Thanks Spoooon and thanks Mike for the explanation. I was confusing noise (ISO) and softness (shutter speed). Since I don't have a full frame camera do I still use 1/focal length for the minimum shutter speed when shooting handheld?

It seems like it's easy to get overwhelmed while taking pictures. I wonder if there is a mental checklist or mnemonic that would help while photographing. I'm new to this but it seems like you would have to consider your light source, background, subject, your relationship to the background and subject, exposure (and what's important like shutter speed), DOF and flash if necessary or desired. I'm sure the list could get bigger but that's a lot to consider while you're dealing with people.

 

[EOM]

EOM - You highlighted another issue.

At some point during the shoot, I needed to take group photos because some were leaving.
I switched to the 24-120, and forgot to switch back to the 85 until later when I went back to individuals/couples.

I do have the 50 as well.
85 is touted as a good focal length for portraiture, and I have no reason to doubt it.
There's an annoying ying-yang with the 50 and 85 - that 35mm difference feels like I need to back up 10 feet when going from the 50 to the 85 !
On the other hand, I feel too close to people with the 50 and doing the "belly-button up" shots.

Honestly, if I was a paid guy and wasn't just "the dad with a big camera", I'd love to have two bodies - one with the 50 on it and the other with the 85.

OK - looking at the group shots, most were shot at ~ 35mm.
So maybe I could put my DX 35 into action next time...
[removed picture]

I've got the 85 as well and even though (maybe especially because) I use it on a crop, it's great for portraits! It is a big enough difference to matter, though, as you said between the 50 and 85.

The biggest difference you'd see isn't the focal length, since you can mimic that on your 24-120... it's the 2 additional stops of light you can get with those primes. First it'd help with the background blur to highlight your subjects, and two, it would easily allow you to keep your shutter speed higher by an order of magnitude.

I know this wasn't a paid gig, but given that it's an important life event for your son and how much was probably already put into the prom, I'd maybe consider renting another body for the day. You've got plenty of lenses so you're covered there.
For your d610 you'd be looking around $60 - $80 for a 3 day rental.
http://www.borrowlenses.com/product/Nikon-D610-Digital-SLR-Camera

You said there were 15 couples? Dividing that 80 out to 15 is less than $3 a kid... that's the cheapest photo shoot i've ever heard of(other than your free one!) Maybe put out a tip jar?

Can i ask about your behavior when using the zoom lens as opposed to the prime? Did you stick with one FL and move with your feet or did you stand it one spot and zoom the lens to fit?

In that latest group shot, why aperture of 7.1? Wouldn't a lower aperture have helped keep shutter speed up and control the background? Only thing I can think of is it doesn't look like they're exactly on the same plane for DoF issues?

 

[EOM]

Thanks Spoooon and thanks Mike for the explanation. I was confusing noise (ISO) and softness (shutter speed). Since I don't have a full frame camera do I still use 1/focal length for the minimum shutter speed when shooting handheld?

It seems like it's easy to get overwhelmed while taking pictures. I wonder if there is a mental checklist or mnemonic that would help while photographing. I'm new to this but it seems like you would have to consider your light source, background, subject, your relationship to the background and subject, exposure (and what's important like shutter speed), DOF and flash if necessary or desired. I'm sure the list could get bigger but that's a lot to consider while you're dealing with people.

Your list would be a good start for an indoor studio. Consider that Mike had to deal with changing lighting conditions as the light was changing outdoors and he had to modify settings every 5 minutes!

I think (might be wrong) you use the same 1/focal length, but use the 35mm equivalent for your crop. if you've got a 50mm, it "behaves" like a 75mm so use at least a 1/80 shutter. if you throw an 85mm on there it "behaves" like a 130mm so use at least a 1/160 shutter. (these speeds are from my canon which happens to be here, a nikon might be slightly different. round up when you can. )

 

[CuriousMike]

Since I don't have a full frame camera do I still use 1/focal length for the minimum shutter speed when shooting handheld?

EOM covered it - for crop, it's
1/ (1.5)*focallength

So, if you're at 50mm, you want ( 1/1.5(50) ) = 1/75 = 1/80.
200mm = 1/300 etc.

These calculations exclude the fact your lens may have VR - if your lens has VR, most VR's are rated for how many stops they get you back.
Regardless of VR, I try for the 1/f

 

[CuriousMike]

Can i ask about your behavior when using the zoom lens as opposed to the prime?

In that latest group shot, why aperture of 7.1?

1. I had no defined behaviour for the zoom - I had them lined up in the general area I had been taking the single shots, and I moved around a little from where I had been with the 85. I adjusted focal length until it seemed close.

2. re: F/7.1 - As you mentioned, I was worried about dof. I did know that DOF is greater in the rear than the front, so I focused on a closer body. I had no DOF calculator and measuring tape with me to know what was good, so I winged it ( and probably wanted f/8 as that's one I usually *sit in, but flubbed into f/7.1 )

I don't know why, but 99% of my shots are probably f/2.8, f/4, f5.6, f/8, f/11 and f/16. I don't tend to sit in the middle and I'm not sure why.

 

[EOM]

I don't know why, but 99% of my shots are probably f/2.8, f/4, f5.6, f/8, f/11 and f/16. I don't tend to sit in the middle and I'm not sure why.

I'd imagine you deal in full stops for the same reason I tend to do the same thing... the math is simpler.

If i double my ISO i can move down one full step on my aperture and still get the same exposure. If i go from f/4 to f/5.6 i know i'd need to move my shutter speed down from 1/1000 to 1/500 to get the same exposure.

If i start to move aperture in third stops like the camera offers, it's quite a bit more mental intensive. As you found out the photoshoot is stressful enough without thinking about math.

This process carries over even when using A mode out of habit.

 

[bigrash]

Great write-up CuriousMike! As someone who recently started shooting events, this is very helpful. Thanks!

 

[balloonshark]

Your list would be a good start for an indoor studio. Consider that Mike had to deal with changing lighting conditions as the light was changing outdoors and he had to modify settings every 5 minutes!

I think (might be wrong) you use the same 1/focal length, but use the 35mm equivalent for your crop. if you've got a 50mm, it "behaves" like a 75mm so use at least a 1/80 shutter. if you throw an 85mm on there it "behaves" like a 130mm so use at least a 1/160 shutter. (these speeds are from my canon which happens to be here, a nikon might be slightly different. round up when you can. )

EOM covered it - for crop, it's
1/ (1.5)*focallength

So, if you're at 50mm, you want ( 1/1.5(50) ) = 1/75 = 1/80.
200mm = 1/300 etc.

These calculations exclude the fact your lens may have VR - if your lens has VR, most VR's are rated for how many stops they get you back.
Regardless of VR, I try for the 1/f

Thank you both for the information. I learn something new everyday.

I looked it up and my lens is a VR lens rated for 4 stops. I will stick with your advice and use a shutter speed of 1/f or in my case 1/1.5 x focal length when holding the camera.