photos of Santa

[dooda]

I am putting together an ad campaign for a group running a photos for santa in their property this saturday and the next saturday as well. The guy who told them he'd do it for $50 an hour is borrowing the camera from someone else, A Pentax 43r weatherproof thing.

So one thing led to another and now I'm doing the photos for them. Not sure what they're going to pay me, but I'm helping out an important client.

I'll be taking snapshot after snapshot of kids sitting on Santas knee. Are there any suggestions? I'll be using the kit lens, I have access to a little light lamp, but unfortunatly don't yet have an SB 800.

What settings do you recommend? At What level should the camera be do you think? Take the photo vertical grip? Any suggestions or pointers would be helpful. This is my first paid gig!

[Raydar]

First thing mate I feel sorry for what you are about to get your self into.

No seriously first thing you have to over come is the kids that will be scared sh&tless upon seeing Santa
Have heaps of fluffy toy’s & dress in something bright so as to take there attention away from the old bloke.

With the cam set up, have it set up on a tripod a little under chest level & the settings, try a few test shots first & see what you come up with, all situations are different so try anything.

When you find something you like stick with it!!! shoot in Raw & fix any probs later when you have more time

Hope this helps

Cheers
Ray

[ajo43]

Raydar,

I would disagree with one thing. If you are shooting in NEF then you are looking at hours and hours of postprocessing. I would suggest you get the right WB using a white card.

Set appeture to a reasonably wide setting. Maybe one stop down from the maximum.

If you are going to use the light lamp then do several practice runs first to make sure the stup works.

If you are worred about the exposure then set up the bracketing to take 2 or 3 shots at +- 1/3 of a stop.

Good luck.

[Onyx]

May I suggest you visit or even post at some professional photog. forums like Rob Galbraith. They might give you some useful tips we could overlook.

The only suggestion I can offer is, whatever light setup you have (hired pro lighting solution or make do with what household things you can work with), use preset white balance on the D70. The kids and santa would probably appreciate NOT using iTTL - or at least cancel the preflashes. Otherwise you'd end up with alot of blinking eyes.

Also, stock up on reindeer food.

[Raydar]

Agreed

Good point on the NEF ajo43

Go with the white card for shore, no point taking more time than you have to with that many images.

Cheers
Ray

[gstark]

I'd be thinking in terms of a Pringles cap and preset wb.

ISO200, portrait mode, f5.6 - f8 if the lighting setup can handle it, 1/60 or faster, dial sharpening up one notch, dial saturation up 2, and perhaps look at a custom curve.

[Greg B]

And have a couple belts along the way. I recommend a good bourbon.

[JordanP]

I'd go vertical grip for sure. Unless the set-up begs a lanscape shot or there are 4 or more kids trying to squeeze onto santa.

If you can, spend 30min before hand getting your lighting and WB all sweet.

Not sure how you are doing any of the lighting but you have a controlled environment in terms of distance to the subject etc so I'd be looking a keeping manual control over lighting.

Smile alot and tell the parents they have wonderful childeren.. they must be proud of them etc. Besides this just being warm and friendly, this will enhance sales and you might find it will generate alot more paid work for you.

If that's what you are after anyway.

Have fun with it,

Oh, and I find kids that won't smile will usually count with you 1...2...3 or say "monkey" with you. When they get to the "eee" bit there mouths will resemble a smile.

[gstark]

Have fun with it,

Oh, and I find kids that won't smile will usually count with you 1...2...3 or say "monkey" with you. When they get to the "eee" bit there mouths will resemble a smile.

Definitely have fun; if you're not having fun, you're not doing it right.

As to getting them to smile ... the word "sex" produces a nice soft sort of smile, but with kids it might not be an entirely appropriate choice of words to use.

When I was doing wedding photography - shooting the tables - I would be shooting couples, and invariably there'd be an older couple (maybe more) on the table. while exorting the other couples to 'say sex" while I'm getting their photo, I would pick on one of the older couples to "remember what it was like". That invariable provoked a nice and somewhat natural reaction, but I was never sure if it was from my joke, or from the fact that they were remembering.

[MHD]

Get some firends kids to do the first one as you muck around with settings... use that to set it up and get the stops and balances right (hehe)

[dooda]

All the tips are much appreciated.

I don't feel like there's too much pressure as the guy before was going to use a crap camera with no lighting or anything. (And the fact that the client just now confirmed me a couple of minutes ago).

I definitly want to do a good job, and maybe buy some wicked photo equip with the money.

Gary, good thing you never asked around me and my wife about the first time, you'd get an expression of nostalgic confusion. Wish me luck and thanks again!

[dooda]

Almost forgot!

We are printing the photos directly from the camera so they have the photo right away. Should I set it to direct print, or portrait, or custom boosting saturation and sharpening? This is a pretty vital piece of information eh?

[bago100]

Dooda
If it is possible, I would go to the photo shoot site and have a practice andc do test printouts.
Pre-visiting sites before an event is really important. I always do this and have been rewarded by finding unexpected problems, or equipment deficiencies.
Anyway, that's what I would advise.
Takes time and effort but you'll feel more confident after having done so.
Wishing you all the best
Graham

[Matt. K]

Dooda
No No No! Never volunteer for Santa shoots! They are the pits!
But now that you are comitted...keep it simple. 1 lamp...camera on tripod...shoot at JPG fine...do some test shots to check white balance. Shoot at 320 ISO so you can have a tad of depth of field, F8 if you can get it and 1/125 if you can get it. Shoot 2 shots of each kid.
Get drunk as soon as posible after shoot.
I'll be there sitting on Santa's knee just to check you out.

[MHD]

In a grass suit

[dooda]

PHotos for Santa went quite well. Man you have to have a good way with kids though, or this is not a gig for you. And sure enough most of them either hated him or just had the crap scared out of them. They'd walk in loving the idea, then see him, then run out. I felt bad for the kids that were pretty much forced to do it. They'd be looking at me and looking at mom and looking at Santa going, Isn't anyone going to do anything about this lunatic? To which I just shrugged and kept shooting. No one could believe how detailed I was, moving Candy Canes around, adjusting this and that. Telling santa where to put his feet.

They set it up in a vacant shop with no lighting but a little flourescent lamp on the other side. Damn lucky I brought a lamp or they would have been in deep kaka. Used the light and the inbody flash to knock out the shadows. White Balance to flash seemed to come out the best (haven't figured out the preset yet). One thing I could have done better is communicated with Santa better. Sometimes I'd take the shot and it was fine, and he'd want two or three more. When a kid is screaming bloody murder there is no way you're going to get him to smile...just get the picture of him screaming and call it good.

I kept some of the photos, I'll post later.

[gstark]

Glad to hear that you survived, and that it went so well. Looking forward to seeing some images of the brat - er, subjects of your efforts.

[dooda]

well,

I know it's slightly after the fact, but here is one of the one thousand images I took. This kid was unusually good. I should post one of the kids screaming. This isn't post processed. I'm doing this again this saturday so please critique.

The most difficult part was getting the trees exposed while not blowing out the beard and hat.

The setup was already done when I got there, Two inches above Santa's head was a window and a snowy afternoon. It was a tricky framing job for sure.

http://www.pixspot.com/displayimage.php ... at=0&pos=2

[gstark]

I would shoot this in portrait mode rather than landscape, and thus zoom in to fill the frame more with santa and brat.

Otherwise exposure looks just a tad under to me. Not anything to worry about; maybe dial back aperture 1/3 stop.

[dooda]

Thanks Gary. I kept dialing up compensation until I was getting highlights in Santa's beard, and stopped then. I exposed for the tree. They were just plain dark. Maybe opening up Aperture slightly is a more gradual change then Exp comp?

I don't remember shooting in Landscape mode. In fact, I don't ever remember shooting in Landscape mode save once when I was first fooling around with the camera. Is that what it says in the Exif? That's really bizaare.

[Onyx]

dooda - I believe Gary was referring to landscape as holding the camer "right way up" instead of portrait "one side up" ie. handgrip up or down, not necessarily the shooting modes.