I have been asked on a number of occasions how I shoot folk at events like 1940's Weekends -as in this thread
So I thought I'd do a brief summary of how I tackle such situations.
I've been shooting these kind of events for a few years now, and developed an approach that works for me, there are plenty of experienced togs on the forum that may have different, but just as valid ways of shooting similar events.
Equipment
Keeping it Simple is probably the most important aspect, therefore I take one camera body (1Ds MKIII) and 2 lenses (135mm F2 & 85mm F1.2) and I spend half the day with one lens, and swap it for the other lens for the other half. No specific reason for this apart from slight variation it gives me. If I had to take just one lens (on a FF body) it would be 135mm F2, mainly because it auto focusses at lightning speed compared to 85 mm. If I was to take a 1.6 crop body, then it would be a 50mm lens I would take. I've used zooms in the past, but am a lot more comfortable with primes, mainly because they are a 'faster' lens, when it comes to this type of shooting, is so important, which I'll go into detail more in settings. I avoid long lenses also, I find 135mm (on a FF body) probably the max length and still be able to keep in communicating distance with the subject. Similarly, wide lenses I've used in the past, but because it's difficult to control the backgrounds, I find them less than satisfactory, but then my main aim is to shoot people either individually, in pairs or small groups.
The only other bit of kit I take is a flash, (580EX), and it's permanently on the camera throughout the day, with a stofen diffuser in place.
Camera Settings
Because of the nature of the event, you don't have time to mess about with constantly changing settings, therefore I set my camera to aperture priority, ISO to 200, and I shoot all day at these settings, the only variable is aperture, which I can quickly tweak via the top scroll wheel. I shoot at ISO 200 mainly because I can totally forget about shutter speeds, knowing that the speeds will always be fast enough not to worry about.
I always use 'fill flash' , set at ETTL, high speed sync so I can shoot at fast shutter speeds. As it is fill flash, I dial in -2/3 stop on the flash, and dial in -1/3 to -2/3 stop on the camera, I may tweak these settings depending on light and can usually feel my way to what gives the best exposure balance between natural light and flash.
Onto why I feel a 'fast' lens is so important, unlike a controlled situation like studio, there are always lots of folk at these kind of events, therefore backgrounds can be busy, messy and unwanted, using a fast lens allows you to kick these distractions out of focus, leaving the subject nice and sharp, 95% of my shots at these events are taken between F2.2 and F3.5. The danger in using such narrow apertures is getting parts of the subject out of focus, particularly the eyes if the subject's face is at an angle, that's why I have my camera settings as described, meaning I can quickly adjust the aperture to compensate by scrolling the top dial.
Light
I never ever shoot in bright sunlight, preferring slightly overcast cloud, and if I can't avoid sunlight, I'll look for shaded areas to shoot. This way I avoid harsh shadows and squinting that bright sunlight inevitably means.
Again, because it's not a controlled situation and you can't move your subject into ideal natural light, using fill flash gives a little more control over light , particularly bouncing a little more light around the face shadows.
Subjects
One of the attractions of these kind of events, is that most subjects 'expect' to be photographed,therefore it's not difficult getting the subject to cooperate. I always ask before I take an individual shot, and show the subject(s) the shot on the cameras LCD screen, and if they ask if they can see the shot on-line, I give them a card with my website address, and suggest they drop me an E-mail and I'll provide them with a large enough jpg image that's suitable for printing.
It is vitally important to work fast with subjects, they don't want to be hanging around ages while you fiddle with camera settings, partly because I feel it impolite, and secondly because if they are waiting around too long, their facial expressions become strained, with fixed smiles.
These type of events produce a wide range of interesting subjects, for me the ladies are more interesting than the fellers, mainly because they seem to spend a lot more time and effort getting the look, style and appearance right. In respect of the blokes, there seems to be a lot of accountants from Halifax with black stripe facial slap, don a Para uniform, bit of camouflaged webbing and try to look macho, windswept and interesting for a day, which somehow doesn't appeal.
Post Processing
Very little, usually crop, tweak the levels, USM. I find if you can get the exposure balance right (natural light/flash) in camera, then there is usually no need for much adjustment. I know there is a certain trend to process these kind of shots in a 'vintage' way, usually sepia, or desaturated colours, vingetting , adding grain, but it's not for me.
These events are great fun, there is generally a carnival atmosphere , it's a photographers playground, so if you have never attended, go along to one, you won't be disappointed.
So I thought I'd do a brief summary of how I tackle such situations.
I've been shooting these kind of events for a few years now, and developed an approach that works for me, there are plenty of experienced togs on the forum that may have different, but just as valid ways of shooting similar events.
Equipment
Keeping it Simple is probably the most important aspect, therefore I take one camera body (1Ds MKIII) and 2 lenses (135mm F2 & 85mm F1.2) and I spend half the day with one lens, and swap it for the other lens for the other half. No specific reason for this apart from slight variation it gives me. If I had to take just one lens (on a FF body) it would be 135mm F2, mainly because it auto focusses at lightning speed compared to 85 mm. If I was to take a 1.6 crop body, then it would be a 50mm lens I would take. I've used zooms in the past, but am a lot more comfortable with primes, mainly because they are a 'faster' lens, when it comes to this type of shooting, is so important, which I'll go into detail more in settings. I avoid long lenses also, I find 135mm (on a FF body) probably the max length and still be able to keep in communicating distance with the subject. Similarly, wide lenses I've used in the past, but because it's difficult to control the backgrounds, I find them less than satisfactory, but then my main aim is to shoot people either individually, in pairs or small groups.
The only other bit of kit I take is a flash, (580EX), and it's permanently on the camera throughout the day, with a stofen diffuser in place.
Camera Settings
Because of the nature of the event, you don't have time to mess about with constantly changing settings, therefore I set my camera to aperture priority, ISO to 200, and I shoot all day at these settings, the only variable is aperture, which I can quickly tweak via the top scroll wheel. I shoot at ISO 200 mainly because I can totally forget about shutter speeds, knowing that the speeds will always be fast enough not to worry about.
I always use 'fill flash' , set at ETTL, high speed sync so I can shoot at fast shutter speeds. As it is fill flash, I dial in -2/3 stop on the flash, and dial in -1/3 to -2/3 stop on the camera, I may tweak these settings depending on light and can usually feel my way to what gives the best exposure balance between natural light and flash.
Onto why I feel a 'fast' lens is so important, unlike a controlled situation like studio, there are always lots of folk at these kind of events, therefore backgrounds can be busy, messy and unwanted, using a fast lens allows you to kick these distractions out of focus, leaving the subject nice and sharp, 95% of my shots at these events are taken between F2.2 and F3.5. The danger in using such narrow apertures is getting parts of the subject out of focus, particularly the eyes if the subject's face is at an angle, that's why I have my camera settings as described, meaning I can quickly adjust the aperture to compensate by scrolling the top dial.
Light
I never ever shoot in bright sunlight, preferring slightly overcast cloud, and if I can't avoid sunlight, I'll look for shaded areas to shoot. This way I avoid harsh shadows and squinting that bright sunlight inevitably means.
Again, because it's not a controlled situation and you can't move your subject into ideal natural light, using fill flash gives a little more control over light , particularly bouncing a little more light around the face shadows.
Subjects
One of the attractions of these kind of events, is that most subjects 'expect' to be photographed,therefore it's not difficult getting the subject to cooperate. I always ask before I take an individual shot, and show the subject(s) the shot on the cameras LCD screen, and if they ask if they can see the shot on-line, I give them a card with my website address, and suggest they drop me an E-mail and I'll provide them with a large enough jpg image that's suitable for printing.
It is vitally important to work fast with subjects, they don't want to be hanging around ages while you fiddle with camera settings, partly because I feel it impolite, and secondly because if they are waiting around too long, their facial expressions become strained, with fixed smiles.
These type of events produce a wide range of interesting subjects, for me the ladies are more interesting than the fellers, mainly because they seem to spend a lot more time and effort getting the look, style and appearance right. In respect of the blokes, there seems to be a lot of accountants from Halifax with black stripe facial slap, don a Para uniform, bit of camouflaged webbing and try to look macho, windswept and interesting for a day, which somehow doesn't appeal.
Post Processing
Very little, usually crop, tweak the levels, USM. I find if you can get the exposure balance right (natural light/flash) in camera, then there is usually no need for much adjustment. I know there is a certain trend to process these kind of shots in a 'vintage' way, usually sepia, or desaturated colours, vingetting , adding grain, but it's not for me.
These events are great fun, there is generally a carnival atmosphere , it's a photographers playground, so if you have never attended, go along to one, you won't be disappointed.
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