Photo Assignment

So I was called to shoot a team portrait of the UMaine Women's basketball team with three days notice. The University needed to update their team photo which goes into all of their informational publications, the website, and becomes a 3' by 4' photo hung in Alfond arena.
Time was going to be very limited since I was shooting this just prior to a game. I figured I would have about five minutes to get them to me, get them into position, and get the shot.

I arrived about an hour early with my gear. I was shooting the game later so I had my typical lenses for sports but for this shot I brought my 24-105L F4 IS Lens (for basketball I bring a 50 F1.4, a 85 F1.8, 135 F2, 70-200 F2.8 IS, and a 300L F2.8 IS, not always all of them but some combo).

I walked around the floor looking for the best spot. I had been told that they always shoot at the far end with the box seats in the background but when I looked at it, it seemed pretty bad actually. I really liked the idea of having the Maine logo on the ground in front of the team so I decided to set up there and hope the coach went for it (she did).

I set up a 60" umbrella camera left just out of frame with a Vivitar 285 HV in it. Mirrored on the right side, I set up a 43" umbrella with another Vivitar 285 hv in it. both were set up as reflective, not shoot thru.

With those two set up, I put my Canon Mark III on a tripod and framed the shot using the logo on the floor as reference. I knew I would have less than 20 people in the shot so planned for two rows behind the logo. I then had my assistant stand in the front and back rows in different positions to see how the light was falling. I needed to feather the umbrellas to the opposite side to get the most even distribution.

I started with 1/2 power but quickly moved to full power on both flashes. Lighting a big group with no ambient to speak of is pushing these units, especially when using an umbrella. I had two problems to fix:

One, I wasn't getting enough coverage to light the logo and the players with the two umbrellas. I added my 580 EX II on my camera and set it to ETTL metering. I was firing my flashes with Elinchrom skyports so I had that into my pc sync port on the camera and that freed up the hotshoe. Normally I would put the skyport transmitter right onto my hotshoe. That gave me the coverage I needed for the logo and also evened out the light on the players (at this point it was my assistant)

two, I wasn't getting a lot of pop from the two umbrellas. I put a sunpak 383 on a stand to the back right of the shooting area to give some highlights/kicker action. This was on 1/16 and shot bare.

So that was the setup. I was getting good enough light at ISO 800 and the Mark III cleans up very well at ISO 800. for sports I sometimes shoot ISO 6400 with it but that certainly isn't something you would want to blow up to a huge poster.

So once all the girls were on the court, the coach brought them over, I told them to put one line in front on one knee. The second row had the coaches on the perimeter. I shot a total of 12 frames once they were in position and then cut them loose to practice.

Getting there early and having someone to stand in to check the lighting made it doable.

Cheers,
Peter