Been asked to photograph an event for work

[Kevin Clark]

Every year our whole institute has a day of seminars at a local business school in town.

I've been asked to take some shots of the day ; our illustrious leader giving his opening address, maybe some candid pics of people discussing presented posters of data, stuff like that.

I've never done anything like that. It's massively out of my comfort zone (and probably skill level). I don't want to look like a noob with no idea while 500 people are looking on.

I have a 16-35mm f2.8 and 24-105mm f4 which would probably cover everything I need. Is it worth me picking up the el cheapo Canon 50mm f1.8 to drop in my pocket? I'm thinking it'll be nicely compact, big aperture in case it's quite dull in there and good enough picture quality.

Or should I just travel light with one lens and hope that covers what I want?

Any advice greatly appreciated before the 19th .

 

[Kevin Clark]

What camera? With the 24-105, I tend to find I have to bump ISO quite high to get usable stuff indoors.

5D3 so I should be ok for ISO and I've got Lightroom4 to clean things up in PP too.

The people will be standing around talking?

The two main scenarios are
- large steeply raked seminar room with speakers presenting. I think I'll probably only do a picture of my boss opening the day as I know most of the people presenting their work will be nervous enough without wanting to be disturbed by a camera going off. I don't want to interrupt someones flow. The only exception to that is I thought of possibly putting the camera on a car behind/side of the rostrum for the afternoon session and triggering it on a remote for an audience shot but until I get there on the day that's only a guess

- a poster session where people stand around discussing the data on the posters with the writers of the data. So that's likely to be large boards with a couple of people standing in front of them with a coffee in hand, chatting.

 

[Kevin Clark]

Thanks for the advice so far guys. Very helpful.

 

[Kevin Clark]

Well that was tough and a learning experience all in one.

I ended up taking 275 photos (with my 24-105mm mostly at F4) which I've just finished sifting through on a first sweep and narrowed it down to 75 that are worth a second look and post process/crop which I'll do tomorrow.

The lecture room pictures were so-so. The dim light meant ISO 5000+ for most of the shots. Not helped by my boss never looking at the audience. I also got a couple of shots along the seating lines focussing on one person looking interested which worked out quite well. Pictures of the general audience are really hard because there's always someone in the shot who is looking at you, yawning, drinking a coffee, checking a phone or looking bored stupid.

At the coffee and lunch breaks I mingled for the candid shots trying to get pictures of people 'interacting'. If you're lining up on a group of people standing in a circle, the person whose face you can see tends to spot you and then subtly change what they're doing to either look much less natural or move a little bit so you can't see their face. I soon learnt that if I caught a flick of the eyes in my direction, it wasn't worth carrying on with that group. The room with the posters was quite cramped and not very conducive to good angles but one group of people were happy to pose. Unfortunately there was a bright window behind them and no room for me to stand the other side so I just fired a load of pictures off, also tried some with exposure compensation up a stop to brighten them up and hopefully I can work something out in lightroom with those.

All I really need is 4 or 5 pictures to be usable. Not only will that depend on if they're ok, but if the people in them sign consent forms. I chatted to our admin at one point and she thinks next time they might draw up a form that basically says if you come through the door you're giving consent to be filmed, in order to reduce the hassle.

But thank you for the advice, it was very useful and I learnt a lot for the inevitable 'next time'.