Help with f stop for family portraits

guys
I’m going to have my family over this afternoon and plan to do a few family portraits using my Chamonix 4x5. The Lens I plan to use is my 210mm f5.6 and initially thought about shooting it at f5.6 and seeing as the location will be back lit just let the background blow out. What are your thoughts on family portraits f5.6 or f45
Neil

I think, as a first cut, you need to consider the necessary depth of field (which is related to how far you plan to stand from your subjects and that relates to how you plan to frame the subject) and the appropriate shutter speed to prevent motion blur. Will your subjects be lit?

Assuming you mean a group shot of family members, then it usually would depend upon how many lines of people you have.

For a single line of people I would think the minimum would be f/8 maybe f/8½.

If two lines of people f/11 to f/11½

3 lines of people almost certainly f/16

I have a family shot I did last year with 4 lines of people using a 210mm f/5.6 lens. The front row of people were children, I exposed two sheets one at f/16 the other at f/22. The f/22 had the little people in the front and much lower than the adults in good focus and the back line (4 rows back) in good focus. The background was nicely out of focus for two reasons, careful focus and I was able to have the background stuff around 250m away. EDIT:- The f/22 version was the better of the two.

Back row was 8 people wide, to give you a sense of scale. The front row of people were about 8m from the front of the camera with that row being 7 little people wide.

If you have a 150mm lens, you could go with a slightly wider aperture, probably a ½ a stop difference all the way through as above; you would need to have the group closer to get the same background effect you are probably after.

As for background blowing out, not an issue as long as faces can be seen; I would think.

Mick.

EDITED, SEE ABOVE.

Mick Fagan said:

For a single line of people I would think the minimum would be f/8 maybe f/8½.

Mick.

EDITED, SEE ABOVE.

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Out of the two, I note that the famous photographer Fellini always favoured 8½ Sorry couldn't resist

pentaxuser

pentaxuser said:

Out of the two, I note that the famous photographer Fellini always favoured 8½ Sorry couldn't resist

pentaxuser

Click to expand...

I thought he favored 8.5 at 1/125-ish.

ndwgolf said:

guys
I’m going to have my family over this afternoon and plan to do a few family portraits using my Chamonix 4x5. The Lens I plan to use is my 210mm f5.6 and initially thought about shooting it at f5.6 and seeing as the location will be back lit just let the background blow out. What are your thoughts on family portraits f5.6 or f45
Neil

Click to expand...

as long as you can keep the faces close to a single focal plane f/5.6-11 should work well and give you max image quality; I wouldn't go above f/11 ofr f/16; what you gain in DOF, you'll lose twice in diffraction.

The easier thing to do is to shoot at f/11 or f/16, this get sharp focus the faces. Reasonably careful placement of the subjects is needed to hold sharp focus. Background exposure will be whatever it is.

To shoot wide open and have sharp focus on multiple faces is possible, but the photographer needs to be very precise with subject placement. For up to 3 people this might be manageable for the average or above average skilled LF photographer. The people need to be able to hold their positions without shifting too much. For larger groups, I say it is still possible, but the skill needed is higher. Especially if young kids are involved. Depends on how formal you want the final image to look.

Why don't you just look on the groundglass? That's what it's for, after all.

Fill lights or some simple reflectors might be helpful to give a more balanced lighting. You might get lucky and have an overcast day. If it is a reasonably large group be prepared to hear "but I look better in this shot" when they preview the images.

http://www.jeffreyglasser.com/