Group Photos Tutorial: How to take family pictures with your digital camera Video Lecture | Capture like a Pro: Digital Photography Tutorial - Professional Skills

hi I'm Tony Northup and for chapter 6 of
my book stunning digital photography I'd
like to talk about shooting group
portrait especially family portraits the
first thing that people will ask you is
what sort of clothes should they wear
and the answer is about the same for
individual portraits and that is muted
colors solid colors no stripes no logos
or big brands you need to tell them
especially with the kids
they don't get to pick their own
clothing today otherwise they're going
to pick like a bright orange shirt with
a huge transformer on it and for the
next 20 years are going to be looking at
this awful dated logo just get as plain
and clothes as you can that works well
if you're shooting like two or three
people in a group if you get into bigger
groups four five six you need to start
coordinating clothes a little bit my
formula is always button-down white
shirt and blue jeans it doesn't look too
matchy-matchy just look too silly to
have everybody in the same thing it
looks fairly natural and most people
have a white shirt and if they don't
they can get one pretty inexpensively
you don't want to try to match other
colors you want to have everybody show
up in like a light blue shirt because
you'll get some people who are in like
turquoise and some are like darker
shades of blue and it just ends up
looking not that great next I'll talk
about choosing a background for a group
photo now I assume that you don't have a
studio like this in this case you might
be choosing a background inside a house
or outdoors and it's much harder to pick
a background for a group photo than it
is for an individual photo because
you're taking a picture of a person you
can just zoom in and do a headshot and
blur the background and it doesn't
matter that much but with a group shot
you're going to have to step back you
also can't use a really shallow
depth-of-field so you'll never get a
great background blur that means the
background is going to be more prominent
so look for really clean lines like a
nice hillside or just a line of a beach
the ocean is a great place for that and
if there is going to be something behind
them like if it's the family house or a
fence or something else put as much
distance between the background and your
subjects as possible that will allow it
to blur at least a little bit I like to
have 20 or 30 feet in other words you
don't want somebody standing right next
to a bird
well have them step as far away from it
as you can but managing that background
is going to be tough because the
background is going to be huge the
farther back you get that's why it's
important to do some location scouting
ahead of time if you do want to set up
your own backdrop support system like I
have behind me it doesn't cost that much
decent white backdrop in a support
system it cost you about 50 bucks look
in the cowboy studios it's inexpensive
but flexible the problem is the system
like this isn't really great for more
than about six or seven people you'll
have to cram the people in as tight as
you can even for that the reason is that
you just need a lot of space and these
things are usually 8 or 9 feet across so
you'll need a big room you'll need high
ceilings and really cranked it up there
most of the time for most people who
don't have a big studio you're better
off doing it outdoors I actually find it
easier to light groups of people than I
do individuals when you shoot an
individual usually try to get the
shadows on the face just perfect and
make sure everything is like nice and
soft and glamorous but when you shoot a
group
well the faces are smaller in the frame
so they're not as much of a focal point
and frankly there's no way to light
individuals in a group so perfectly so I
just end up making the light as soft as
possible this can be as easy as just
using a bounce flash and pointing it
towards the ceiling if you happen to
have a studio you can grab soft boxes
and just put them on either side of your
subjects it doesn't hurt to have a hard
light behind them acting as a kicker
light or a hair light so if you have to
have an extra flash or a strobe just set
it bare and behind them and it'll just
give a little rim light otherwise just
get as soft as you can if you're
shooting outdoors put everyone in the
shade or at least put the Sun of the
back but don't have the Sun in front of
them otherwise everybody will be
squinting into it and if you're in a
shade or it's an overcast day use a
little fill flash just use your
on-camera flash and add a tiny bit of
fill to add a catch light to the eyes
and fill in any shadows composition is
the art of framing your picture and I
see people do it wrong with group shots
all the time now my first rule of thumb
with group shots is you don't need to
see anybody below the waist you
want to see mostly faces and some chests
but I see people just stand back and try
to take a picture of the whole person
and there's no need for that we don't
need to see people's shoes what you want
to see are the faces because that's what
we care about and you're going to try to
fill up the frame with faces as much as
possible so you're going to arrange
people so that their faces fill almost
the entire frame that means getting
people really really close together even
turning them sideways and having their
chest to their back or having people if
you arrange people in multiple rows
you're going to have people with their
backs against the Front's of the next
person behind them this allows you to
cram people as close together that as
many phrases faces in the frame as
possible and get as tight as you can now
word of warning about composition a lot
of people want to make eight by ten
prints of their family photos and that
shape is not as wide as your camera is
your camera shoots about this wide and
an 8 by 10 is about like this with an 8
by 10 you have to cut one inch off of
each side so keep that in mind as you're
composing the picture if you're just
going to stick it on face book doesn't
matter fill the whole frame if you plan
to make a print leave some room on the
left and right for framing so let's talk
about doing family portraits with
children children pose a particular
challenge because they're shorter than
everybody else they're kids so if you
have a little baby you can just have the
person stand and hold it in their arms
that brings the face close enough that
you should still be able to crop nice
and tight what I do if families have
toddlers I'll just have the family get
on the floor everybody can just sit down
and do a seated pose seating is a really
easy way to level out everybody's height
as you build larger groups and you have
to have multiple rows you'll have to
have the heads at different heights so
that you can stack them together and
there are a few ways to do this you
usually don't want people mixed seating
and standing though that's okay to do
what I usually do is I will have what's
called Apple boxes which are just wooden
boxes that people can stand on and you
can bring those out to raise people up
to
different heights if you don't have that
you can just pull out some big paperback
or hardback books and have them stand on
that for taller people you can have them
take their shoes off and you know take
off maybe an inch of height I warn you
against having people kind of crouch or
stand on their tiptoes that's a lot of
people's instinct but what happens then
is people are thinking about their
tiptoes and usually they have a silly
like tiptoe face camera settings are
actually really challenging when you're
shooting a group shot the easiest part
is going to be the shutter speed you
need a shutter speed of about one
sixtieth or one 125th to freeze the
action if you have any sort of movement
going on especially the little kids you
better err on the side of faster and go
for one 125th so now that we know the
shutter speed we have to adjust the ISO
and the aperture most of the time with
portraits I recommend people use the
lowest f-stop number they can but that's
when you're shooting a single person you
wouldn't want to shoot a group at f28
because what you'd find is one person
would be in focus and nobody else would
be in focus the depth of field with the
typical portrait lens is really really
shallow so shallow that you can get the
person's eye and focus and their nose
and hair will be completely out of focus
so you can imagine if you have a couple
rows of people or even two people who
seem to be side-by-side one of them will
be completely blurry that's no good so
you end up using a higher f-stop number
if I'm shooting two people standing
side-by-side I usually try to get to
about f/8 if I'm shooting more than that
or shooting multiple rows I need to go
way up there I need to be like f-16 if I
want to be sure that everybody's sharp
it also means that I usually end up
using a wider angle lens so while I
shoot a head shot of a single person at
200 millimeters and f28 for a group shot
of three or four people I usually we had
a hundred millimeters and say Apple Evan
if it's a larger group I might go all
the way down to 50 millimeters and then
say f-16 or even higher to test your
camera settings you're going to take a
picture and then you're going to zoom
and make sure that everybody's face is
in focus it's not in focus you can try
to adjust your focus a little bit or you
need to increase that f-stop even more
now having that really high f-stop and
being stuck with your shutter speed
means that your ISO is going to have to
go up so nice to have a lot of light you
don't happen to have a lot of light
you're just going to have to use a
higher ISO because something has to give
now the way depth of field works when
you focus is about a third of the depth
of field is close to closer to you than
your focusing point but most of the
sharpness about two-thirds of it is
going to be after the point you focused
on so if you have multiple rows of
people I suggest you focus on the front
of the middle row if you have just two
rows of people I would go ahead and
focus on the front row that's going to
be your best bet and the best way to get
as many people in focus as possible as
you're taking pictures I find that the
one two three cheese thing still works
better than just about anything else
with an individual's portrait especially
with kids it's fun to get kind of silly
sometimes but I find that with groups of
kids there's more than one kid in the
family they tend to lose control and
pretty soon they're making like wacky
faces if that does happen what I like to
do is I say okay now we're going to take
a silly shot so everybody make your
silliest face and then after that we're
going to take a couple of serious shots
with a group shot you're going to end up
taking a lot of pictures and the more
people in the group the more pictures
you're going to take think of it this
way if you're taking a picture of an
individual person you probably need four
or five frames just to get one where the
person has a good expression and they're
not blinking or making like a derp face
so if you have two people mathematically
that would mean you need sixteen shots
to get one picture where both people had
a good face and it's a permutation you
add another person out there and
suddenly you're up to needing 48
pictures and so on so when you get into
big groups of eight or ten people you're
just going to take as many shots as you
can before people lose their patience
it's not unusual for me to be there for
you're lucky to get ten or fifteen
minutes out of a group but just keep
clicking try to keep people smiling that
means you need to keep smiling
you need to keep talking and just keep
taking shots now you're still going to
have to go back and do some
post-processing and you know what it
with a group of eight or ten people I
never find a shot where everybody's face
is great so it's not uncommon for me to
erase people's heads and from take it
from one frame and put it into another
so it kind of mix and match I take
everybody's best head and stick it in
there it's a lot easier if you have a
nice clean background like the sky or a
white backdrop it's pretty hard if you
have a complex backdrop like a brick
wall or something it's just harder to do
the cloning so in summary I actually
think group shots are a little bit
easier than individual portraits mostly
because they're typically so standard
everybody kind of stands there and
smiles I don't have to worry about fancy
posing or anything make everybody
comfortable stay really smiley a nice
soft light you can just bounce a flash
off the ceiling and you're probably good
it helps to have another person there so
that they can check everybody's ties and
make sure that nobody's hair is blocking
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