How do I shoot a group shot of 160 people?

[RAP]

I would determin the amount of area in the bleachers the group will occupy, how many rows and number in the rows needed to best fit the format your using. Measure out the space on the bleachers. Most gyms have bleachers on opposite sides. If so, have those also open so you can climb up to a hight where you are looking down on the group with the camera. I would use a long lens which will bring out the faces more. As for lighting, I have used 2 800ws packs with heads and reflectors, no umbrellas. Not the softest light but it will acentuate the small details of faces in the prints. A faster negative film is reommended.

 

[MarkS]

Wayne, it was a long time ago, and I was only an assistant on the huge groups. I assume the lens on the 4x5 was a 135 or 150. It would really depend on the available space for the setup. We used only normal lenses on the Bronicas- there was one 150mm lens at the studio, to be occaisionally loaned out for "sports" assignments. The senior portraits were done with Camerz 70mm long-roll studio cameras, 6x7cm image size with a 210mm lens.

 

[Wayne R. Scott]

Just an update to this thread. I did the shoot today. I used some of the suggestions listed above. Here is a quick snapshot of the group that was taken with my Leica M2 and a CV Classic 35mm f2.5. This was shot on Fuji Reala Pro 100 ISO film. This was just to record the scene (and to get 1 hour processing on 35mm) to give to the teachers this afternoon.

For the record shots I used a Bronica ETR with 75mm lens and Kodak Portra 400 UC, a Koni-Omega 200 with 58mm lens and Fuji Pro 160S and a Kodak 2D 8x10 with Voltas 12" lens with Arista 100 B&W.

I did a test roll with 35mm a couple nights earlier and found that using my mono-lights with reflectors left "hot spots" in the group, trying to use umbrellas and bouncing the light over the group area sucked up too much light and I could not get a usable f-stop with enough depth of field. So I used the mono-lights with out reflectors as "bare-bulb" light sources for the shoot.

I took 5 shots on 8x10 using two double sided film holders. Those of you that are good at math and have used large format cameras in the past have probably figured out that I forgot to pull the dark slide for the first 8x10 shot

Thanks for all of your advise. I doubt that I will get the 120 rolls back before the new year. I will try to develop the 8x10's in the next couple of days.

Thanks again to all of you.

Wayne

P.S I don't think we quite got 160 people in there; about 155 or so.

 

[Gay Larson]

Good job, I read the whole thread and wondered if you were more reluctant after all the advice than before but you sound very confident. Which one is your wife?

 

[Konical]

Good Evening, Wayne,

All things considered, you seem to have been rather successful is achieving relatively even lighting with such a large group. You were lucky in that most of the subjects are children; teenagers and/or adults would have taken up more space and made lighting more difficult.

You can also see how advantageous it would have been to have a really powerful main light directly above camera position. That would have reduced the shadows thrown on each side of the individuals by the fill lights angled into the group from the sides.

Hope your larger format results are equally encouraging and that you will eventually share them here.

Konical

 

[jonw]

Wayne: Glad to see you are still using the Kodak D2 with the Voltas...I still miss that lens. It is sweet. Please post some pictures with that lens! Thanks. Jon