A Group Photo

I took a photo today of our church choir. It was inside with your normal church lighting. I used a D7000 with a Nikon 28-300 lens. I used a shutter speed was 10 and the aperture was 7.1 at 500 ISO. I used a SB-700 speedlight a shot through a white umbrella. The umbrella was about 10ft in the air. The photo came out fairly well but in Lightroom I could see quite a bit of grain and also got quite a few reflections on some of the choir's glasses. The photo was just not sharp.Any suggestions on how to improve this shot would be appreciated.

It would help if you posted the pic. Sounds like not enough light, thats a slow lens and it may have helped to crank up the ISO to at least 800-1000.

BTW, Welcome to the site!

Welcome...Can you post the image with the exif data attached then we can help you better..

dekeman said:

I could see quite a bit of grain and also got quite a few reflections on some of the choir's glasses. The photo was just not sharp.Any suggestions on how to improve this shot would be appreciated.

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With that lens at longer FL, you will need a faster shutter speed or use a tripod to get a sharper image. 1/10 is just too slow even if your hand holding technique is good. Once you start pixel peeping just like what you did, you will see the flaws of your work.

You have to realize that the power of the SB 700 isn't really that much. I am assuming that you used CLS system to activate the SB 700. If the light is not enough, simply increase the out put power or use another speed light and have it bounced or just work on the RAW file and play with the lighting a bit.

Thanks for the input and thanks to all for the new member welcome. I used a tripod and a remote switch to fire the camera. The SB 700 was at full power. I used a slower shutter speed thinking that would help me get more light. The SB 700 really helped but sounds like it just wasn't enough. I assume I got the glare on the glasses because I had the light pointing directly at the group. It was a very high ceiling so I couldn't bounce it very well. Thanks for the help.

Try mirror up next time if you are using slow shutter speeds. what kind of tripod and ballhead do you use?

did you have the high iso noise reduction on ?? shapness at +9 contrast at -1.

Next time just use the flash straight on as long as its directley above the lens you will not get any funny shadows ..shoot at F11 ..iTTL iso 800 should be fine ..shutter at 1/60 also good..I assume you had it set for large

I'm going to try these settings out see how they work. I don't really know what you mean "set for large". I will have to check on the ISO noise reduction. I really can't tell you if I had it on or not. This is great information. Thanks for taking the time.

I'll try the mirror up. I've never tried it before. You don't want to know what tripod I have. Not the greatest for sure. Thanks for the help and taking the time.

the critical thing in what you say is 1/10 sec ....this shows the camera was not set in iTTL flash mode and was trying to monitor the light present...it would have been at 1/60 in flash mode.
Large is for the file size in your menu or you are not using all the pixels and wiil not be as sharpe in medium or small.
Using a tripod or mirror up is not relavent in flash as the flash is about 1/1000 second and stops movement ...

If you were doing this with flash umbrellas you need two one each side of the group,,but theys soak up a lot of power and would usually have a 600w flash head behind them your hand held unit is nothing like that power which is why I suggest using it bare but right over the lens (to avoid side shaddows ) ...

If you want to try the brolly again you need it to trigger from the on camera flash. remote flash set in S1 or S2 manual full output and then use Aperture mode 1/60 and adjust the aperture by trial and error chimping the screen to see if the exposure is right. Better still use a long ITTL extension lead ..you can get these up to 10m on ebay.

I'm not sure I understand the iTTL. I had the camera set in Commander Mode (for built in flash) but I was using a PocketWizard on the camera and one on the SB-700. I was shooting in manual mode, 1/10, 7.1, ISO 500. Should the camera been set differently? Thanks for the help.

ahh so you got some good gear ..only thing I dont understand is why 1/10 if you are using flash as 1/60 would be starndard considering the flash duration is only 1/1000 sec.. that 1/10 could give rise to blurr if anyone moves. sounds to me like the camera is monitoring ambient light and adding the flash.
The pocket wizard allows you to use iTTL .. which is when the flash fires and has put sufficient light on the the subject the flash shuts off ....all the fittings I have seen in the hot shoe prevent the built in flash rising properly ???
If you have not used the poscket wizard a 100 times with success I suggest reading the book ..are you sure you need comand mode which is for the flash on the camea to signal to other flashes when to fire ..no pocket wizard required ?

I wasn't thinking about the whole picture. I was slowing down the shutter speed thinking I could get more light but wasn't thinking about what negatives that would create. All your comments are fantastic. I'm going this weekend to try it again and see how I do. Thanks for all the help.