I will be taking a family photo this weekend. Its a big event (Mom's 90th!!) and my family has asked be to take the group shot (66 people). I know I am going to have problems with lighting this shot with the higher f stop I will have to use to keep everyone in focus. My goal is going to try to just get that histogram so it is not clipping on the black end (shooting in RAW). As long as I can accomplish this, I should be able to correct the underexposure in light room without any loss of quality since all the pixels are present. Is this an accurate statement?? (I know how to use the Develop module pretty well in Lightroom, I am mostly concerned here if there is any significant loss in quality of a photo when changing the exposure if you have all or most of the pixels present. Seems like it shouldn't but I thought I would check here for confirmation).
Basic Question on exposure control in Lightroom
- Thread starter Revet
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BackdoorArts
Senior Member
If you're not clipping blacks then yes, you should be fine.
For a group that large you're likely going to either be a good distance from them, using a wide angle lens, or both. This will only help you concerning depth of field, even at bigger apertures. From 10 feet away with a 35mm (on a cropped sensor) at f/4 you have an effective depth of field of almost 4 feet. Go to f5.6 and it's almost 6 feet, and if you're shooting at 15 feet away that's now 13 feet of DoF!! That's plenty of room to get that group that large all in focus. And f5.6 should be enough to achieve a decent shutter speed. But stick your camera on a tripod and use the timer or a remote anyway so you can get in the shot.
If you're wondering how I got the DoF, there's a great little app called TrueDoF for the iPhone. The "intro" version is free and is likely all you need. Just remember to set the app for the correct sensor crop.
For a group that large you're likely going to either be a good distance from them, using a wide angle lens, or both. This will only help you concerning depth of field, even at bigger apertures. From 10 feet away with a 35mm (on a cropped sensor) at f/4 you have an effective depth of field of almost 4 feet. Go to f5.6 and it's almost 6 feet, and if you're shooting at 15 feet away that's now 13 feet of DoF!! That's plenty of room to get that group that large all in focus. And f5.6 should be enough to achieve a decent shutter speed. But stick your camera on a tripod and use the timer or a remote anyway so you can get in the shot.
If you're wondering how I got the DoF, there's a great little app called TrueDoF for the iPhone. The "intro" version is free and is likely all you need. Just remember to set the app for the correct sensor crop.
Thanks Hippie, I have an App for the Android and I got similar figures as you did. I have a post going on taking this photo entitled "Need help shooting a large family picture" (or something similar to that). Most of the people who responded there think that I am going to have to use an f8 or higher to get everyone in focus. I let you know what I end up using.