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Hello and Merry Chistmas to all,

I have been approached to take all the team photos for my son's cricket club. Can anyone suggest what is the best (& 2nd best) lens I should use for the shoot.

Thanks in advance,

ghost

What lenses do you have available to you? Kit lens (18-70 DX), 17-35 f/2.8, 17-55 f/2.8 DX will all be fine.

Yeah... Trent beat me to it... it really would help if you told us what lenses you had... otherwise we could probably suggest some hideously expensive lenses that you probably won't own...

And your location in your profile is also help.

Birddog114 wrote:And your location in your profile is also help.

We've already told him this.

While it's not (yet) compulsory, it is if this person wants to progress further in the community then there's no better way than to provide this information.

Otherwise, I might just have to soak it from within his IP address and put it there for him or her.

Trent's suggestion of the 17-55 is excellent

Glen wrote:Trent's suggestion of the 17-55 is excellent

Oooh yes!
I recently took some graduation shots with this fine lens - it will more than suit this purpose.

28-70 is ideal in my opinion as you will NEVER distort someones face like some wide angles can, only problem is on digital it isn't all that wide... but it makes up for it in absolute sharpness, and when stopped down, free from all optical problems like CA, ghosting etc. The 17-55 can be better, but only if you have your back to a wall.

depends on how many are in the team 12-13 ppl?
are you intending on buying a lenses?

He or she may go out and buy the whole range of suggested range of lenses
Finally, you guy will get the blame if he or she will be allocated a spot in the dog house

Ghost (whoever you are, wherever you are),

My suggestion is to get a reasonabvle distance back from the team and shoot with as close to a normal focal length as you can with what you've got. On a 1.52 crop Nikon that would be about a 35mm lens - on 36x24 it would be a 50mm. If you can manage longer then do it within reason.

Approaching it in this manner will keep the scale of the lads in the front row and the back row reasonably natural. It will also avoid knees and knuckles dominating if they sit with their hands on their knees. It also aleviates the risk of 'egg-heads' forming at the ennds of the rows. It will also minimise the divergence of the knees, shoulders and faces.

And watch it with the expressions on the little blighters' faces - a lot of youngsters are scared of ghosts!

Cheers,

Canon 1200mm f5.6. Just stand a long way back

Sheetshooters advice is on the money. Don't shoot with an ultra-wide at close range. 50-85 would be optimal, otherwise you get too far away (though having said that, if you have a distracting background, using a moderate tele will throw it out of focus nicely).

used to photograph quite a lot of this sort of thing 20 plus years ago.
I always used a standard lens (50mm) on 35mm film or 75-80 on medium format for the reasons covered by Sheetshooter.

my preferred way of shooting this sort of shot is 3 rows where possible, rather than 2 longer rows. This results in filling a 2x3 frame more completely.
Just watch depth of field to ensure all in focus
If possible exploit a park bench or borrow some chairs to have one row standing behind the chairs, one row seated in the chairs and the third row seated on the ground in front. I used to seat the captain in the centre of the row of chairs and have coach / managers if requested standing on either end of the back row. If you know someone who as a pegboard if would be good or if you could borrow one so that you can have the name of the team, year, grade, honours in the shot. or perhaps the usual props like crossed bats etc (just for the cliche team shot )
ahhhh memories!!

Regards Steve

Bit like a cast and crew pic on a movie - the Director will ALWAYS get it done on the day when he can sit on a crane! The predictability of groups, but I think it is expected not only by the participants but also by the viewers.

Cheers,