Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I'm taking a very large group shot. Could be 300 people!!!

It's going to be late afternoon. Sun will be behind them maybe blocked by buildings. I have 2 ab800s. I have a bucket truck so I can soot downward at them. I plan on wrangling them into a circle pattern.

In plan on using the plm 86" silver umbrellas on both. Is this possible???? Is it possible to get light on everyone with this set up? Or am I fooling myself??

It may be possible, though you will probably need to use a higher ISO, and wider aperture (which will limit your depth of field). Aim the lights to the farthest area relative to that light. So a light on the left aims at the back right. The feathered nature of the light hitting the people closer will offset the brightness usually associated with a closer subject to light distance. The farther back your lights are, the more even the coverage, but the less intense they are. Also, be sure to sandbag or otherwise secure the stands properly.

You may also consider at this point, quantity of light trumps quality, and go with metal 8.5 or 11" reflectors.

Thank you for the reply.

So are you saying this would work better than the 86" umbrella?
http://paulcbuff.com/11ltr.php

Wouldn't the beam be too narrow and only hit a small section of the people?

I also have a white surface beauty dish, will that give me anything?

Backing up, are you planning on using a soft silver or extreme silver PLM?

Regardless of the modifier, output is going to closely (but not necessarily exactly) correlate to beam spread. Wider spread means less intensity on a given area, narrow spread will give more intensity.

Beyond intensity and spread, you will also need to consider fall off. With 300 people, you will have a very large area to light (I am estimating a minimum of 40x40 feet, if you have ~18 people x ~17 people). If your lights are 40' in front of the group, then the people in the back will get 1/4 of the light the people in the front get (2 stops less). Crossing the lights, and aiming to the back will help, letting the front get lit by feathered light. The point is for even lighting over large areas, you will need distance. And with distance, you will get spread.

A PLM may or may not give you marginally better results, but this is outside on, presumably, very highly raised lightstands with ~19 sqft of sail material each. Use caution if you go this route.

I was looking at using the extreme silver PLM (86"). I was figuring that would get me the most power and the widest spread. Right?

Would my beam be bright enough on the back rows of people with that PLM? Should I rent another light, and have a third light hit the front half with a standard umbrella from my crane? So im shooting above with that center light on the front group of people? Then cross the other two from right and left both with large silver PLM's?

Make sense?

This is an example I found. Can you tell if this is lit or not? It looks like they are all in shade, so maybe the photographer just exposed them without an external flash source. I would love to be able to use natural light if possible, but I want to make sure I get everyone's face exposed properly. Since Im shooting from above them, maybe its going to be easier to expose all of them with natural light.

http://www.jeffellisphoto.com/gallery/l ... up_018.jpg

It would give you a lot of power, and at close distances, would cover a larger area than any other modifier. However, the spread of the extreme silver PLM (15-26 degrees) is narrower than that of the 11LTR (28 degrees). Given the characteristics of the near Parabolic shape of the PLM and the massive size differences, it is hard to make an apples to apples comparison.


"Bright enough" is an ambiguous question. At the right ISO and the right aperture, then yes it will be bright enough. But if you can achieve or desire such an aperture or ISO is a different question. Also, if you expose for the far rows, what will that do to the front rows? That will depend on both the light to front row vs. light to back row ratio as well as how they are feathered. The settings limitation brought by the ambient will also throw another monkey wrench into things.



In a situation like this, more lights would not hurt, and go for powerful ones. If you got two, they can light the back, and the 800's could handle the front.



It's hard to say. If it is lit, it is just a little fill flash. The grass is in "sunny 16" light and overexposed by a stop or two, and they are in shade at... f/4-f/5.6 light. So it could be lit, or some dynamic range enhancements.