Time for a new lense

[Luke_m]

Had my Canon 1000d for a couple of years now and have now have brought a 50mm and a 70-300mm whilst owning it.
A friend has asked me to do some photography for him, its a small rally team that are looking for sponsors so they are going to be having a hospitality day where possible sponsors will be attending to see the new car. They want me to get pictures with everyone standing next to the car, so basically portrait pictures outside.
Can anyone recommend me a lense for this and what kind of setup i might need i.e. lighting (flash for the camera with filter), tripod etc.

Cheers Luke

 

[Revels]

You won't need a tripod. You want something wide.

Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 or maybe a Sigma 10-20mm.

If it's outside, then you might not need the flashes if it's during the day, but if you're using a flash outside you're going to want an umbrealla and some wireless senders too really.

 

[f0xy]

http://www.cliosport.net/forum/showthread.php?551581-Canon-17-40-f4L-USM

Depends how much you want to spend I guess. Speaking from experience, more expensive does certainly mean better quality imo, both in image quality and build. L Series lenses are great if you want to pay the price, and hold their value very well.

 

[unofficialPete]

Use the lenses you have.

Lighting will be far more important, especially outside as you'll need to control natural with artificial for fill.

Depending on the effect you want I'd probably do the opposite of Revels and not go wide. I'd step right back and use the 70-300 with a remote flash or umbrella depending what you want to spend etc!

You can do things very cheaply with an old manual flash and some eBay triggers for instance.

If space is tighter I'd use the long end of your standard zoom then consider pulling out the wide shots for some quirkier images and super wides of the car.

 

[Luke_m]

Cheers guys, so if I go for something like the Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 I could also get some good shots of the car providing i'm not to far away from it?

 

[Andy.]

The 17-50 will not give you anything special outdoors IMHO. The f2.8 will help you in lower light situations, but it will not give you a particularly narrow DOF between 17-50mm unless you are shooting (very) close to the subjects.

I recently had to take some outdoor group shots for a company and the thing that saved the day was my 430EX flash, cheapo tripod (for it to stand on) and ebay wireless trigger.
It provided some much needed fill lighting which meant I actually ended up with a usable photo. Without I would have had to mess around in Photoshop to pull the sky back or used a second exposure and blend them together.

Using flash in daylight is highly underrated IMHO. It can dramatically improve a shot if balanced correctly.

If all else fails, shoot in RAW and work some PP magic.

 

[DanFreemanPhoto]

50mm will be fine for group photos. As said, a flash can add that little extra something, but you will need a powerful one if its outside.

 

[dunganick]

You will want something with a bit of wide angle to it.

Common shots sponsors want to see are team photos, so the part of the car with the sponsor on it, with drivers/managment etc.. 50mm will be fine here.

Other common shots are shots with the drivers knealing by the car, ideally with driver name and a sponsor in the shot.

Some shots from Jakob Ebrey's site from Tom Ingram having his BTCC Test for winning the Junior Ginetta's, Jakob has just used a flash on the camera, nothing too special but they are nicely exposed shots etc... and sponsors would sooner have a very sharp vibrant photo than a technically well lit interesting photo.

http://jakobebrey.com/search_results.asp?championship_id=56&events=6813&page_id=7

Also when you do actual shots of the car it entirely depends on what part of the car their sponsors are on. Quarter on shots or pans are much more useful to them usually than head on. Also a greater DOF and shutter speed than usual for the driving shots as you need the front and back of car in focus. Nothing too fancy, i have always found that teams and sponsors prefer the more boring shots to the ones that photographically are more interesting.

I would look at either a 10-22mm Sigma or a 24-70mm 2.8 of some sort.

Take hundreds of shots, nothing worse than thinking you have got 'the shot' and finding its not focused.