Help - photographer for the day

[lou boutin]

We have our Annual Conference coming up and I've been told that I'm the official photographer.  I am being given a DSLR for the day and I've been instructed to get some good photos. I'm expected to photograph keynotes, other presenters, the poster competition and the presentations. There is one massive problem - I have no idea what I'm doing. I've been told there is a point and shoot option which I was relieved to hear. But I've got to take photos of the complete plonker who is giving the presentations - he thinks I'm a muppet, mocked me to his flunky a few times, so I don't want to give him any further evidence for his bigoted opinion. Any tips on how to look like I at least know one end of the camera from another?

[David Martin]

Oh fantastic, just what you want. Having something you don't know how to do dumped on you with no chance to learn beforehand.
I've done this before but with lots of preparation and planning.

Q's to ask:
Are the presenters going to be lit or just their presentations?
Are you allowed to use flash?
Can you photograph during the talks?
Can't they find someone else?
Can you palm it off on someone else in the organisation?

Make it quite clear that this is not your expertise and that they cannot expect anything other than getting people in the shots. Having them visible and of publishable quality will be more by luck than judgement.

[lou boutin]

Q's to ask:
Are the presenters going to be lit or just their presentations? keynotes will be lit by spot light. presenters are in breakout rooms which will have natural daylight
Are you allowed to use flash?  I hope so. Are there any health and safety issues I should know about re using flash photography?
Can you photograph during the talks? yes, I've been told to and to photography people who ask questions of keynotes.
Can't they find someone else?  I wish.
Can you palm it off on someone else in the organisation? No, the department is ime, an administrator, a director (who's left) and a Dean.

Do I need different lenses and if so when would I use them? Tripod - or will it get in the way? I've been offered a zoom so I can get close ups of keynotes without being inner face.

[Kim]

I'd suggest that using a tripod is probably one of the best ways to help someone who doesn't know what they're doing to achieve usable indoor photos, especially without flash.  On the other hand, they can be obtrusive.  If you can have one available, you always have the choice to not use it, or only use it from the back of the room (perhaps in combination with zoom, where camera shake will be more of a problem).

If you're shooting with the camera on full-auto, take loads of shots, with and without flash, and try to vary the compositions (from different angles, amount of zoom, etc, to change what's in the background).  That'll improve your chances of getting photos where the auto exposure does what you want it to.  If the camera has an exposure bracketing mode (where it automagically takes a sequence of shots at different settings), that might be a good idea too.

Think about lighting.  There's probably little you can do about it other than deploying the on-camera flash or moving to the other side of the room, but be aware of the perils of shooting unlit people against a bright window or screen.  You can use flash to fill-in, but be aware that will wash out any projections.  It's all compromise.

Good luck.

[lou boutin]

Thanks for that advice.  I've been offered a tripod so might use it at the back with the zoom as suggested. I sense I need to practice before the day.  I might be able to get the camera and the administrator and practice a bit.

[Biggsy]

They shouldn't expect anything if they don't give you a day to practice with, and still that's pushing it.  Good luck.

Remember that hi-res photos can be cropped quite a bit afterwards and still be of acceptable quality, so don't worry if you're not always "zoomed in" enough at the time.

[T42]

I did this for nine years when I was on our regional FFCT committee. It can be hell.

Tell them emphatically that you need the camera NOW.  If they say no then ask for the make and model, then someone here will have some knowledge of it or can find out.  Knowing e.g. what ISO speed it's capable of at an acceptable quality will allow us to help.

If they can give you a separate flash it'll help a good deal, for the one on the camera will probably be inadequate for a big room and will certainly give your victims subjects red-eye. With a separate flash you can bounce off the ceiling.  Asking will also tell you if they'll let you use it.

The faces of people who are talking assume some awful expressions they certainly won't thank you for photographing. For each speaker you need to take a series with the camera set to continuous low-speed shooting, so that you get a salvo of shots.  With luck one of them won't look like this:



This means that you'll be taking a hell of a lot of shots, so make sure they provide you with adequate storage media.

Another thing to remember is that people who aren't speaking don't realise that they might be in-shot as well as the speaker.  I've taken shots where the speaker came out beautifully and some oik right beside him on the platform was "discreetly" picking his nose.

You also need to use a shutter speed high enough to avoid this sort of thing:



If awards are to be presented try to get the action square on to the camera, otherwise it's quite common for the presenter to swivel round and block your view of the recipient.  Also, if you aren't square on then one subject will look like a giant and the other a dwarf.  A quiet word up front to whoever's running the show will get help to avoid this. Also try to get them to linger on handshakes the way you see MPs etc doing at photo ops.  Impress on the Grand Mufti that getting decent shots needs his cooperation as well. Press togs get away without it but he won't think of this and it'll get you a lot of help.

When the room is full but before the talk starts, walk up onto the platform as brazen as hell and take a few general shots of the audience. They go down well.  You can also take a few from the sides if you get bored during the waffling.

If there's a nosh&splosh afterwards, don't shoot people who are eating and talking at the same time. Or do, if you want something for "Caption It".

Sit down whenever you can, it can be bloody tiring.

Oh, I used to set my camera (initially a Nikon D200 then a D300s, lovely cameras but old hat now) on JPEG/vivid colour.  Low-end Canons tend to be vivid anyway, as I remember.

That's about it.  Anything else I can think of I'll post.

PS just re-read your comments re "plonker".  Armed with the above you can make him look like the plonker, especially if you get him with a finger up his nose.

[T42]

Also:

Try to arrange with the master of ceremonies just one place where awards/handshakes are going to take place, otherwise you'll be buzzing about like a blue-arsed fly.  Get there a while ahead of the kick-off and make sure you won't have a reflective background - darkish curtains are wonderful. That bright red wall in my shots was shiny - the whole of the area available for presentations was like that. Horrible.  I even considered buying my own backdrops just for AGMs. Never did, the buggers would have stood in the wrong place anyway.  One lot decided to stand right beside a waste-bin.

Take a few shots with the room empty to see what kind of exposure you're going to need, making sure that your shutter speed is high enough to avoid blurring, 1/100 sec or over.  NB a P&S setting will often choose too low a speed, but you could use a 'sports' setting if the camera has scene modes.

Bump up the ISO to the max possible that will give you non-grainy pics.  Take a non-flash shot of your hand to get an idea of what flesh will look like.

After doing all that, it's quite possible that they'll change the lighting in the room when they start.  At one nightmare AGM I did I got all set up then soon after the start they decided to show a video, so they darkened down the entire platform area and left it that way until the end.  Find out and take precautions, even to the point of taking over the lights yourself if you can/have to.

I used to come out of a 2½ hour AGM with several hundred shots and spend a couple of days selecting and titivating in Photoshop. This included painting out the jewel-like reflections of direct flash off golden molars.  It's a nice idea to whiten the odd dark tooth anyway; the subjects will know but they'll be glad you didn't let the rest of the world see them.  You can darken down one of the plonker's incisors a bit, though, it'll get him worried.

[Jaded]

Get a list of photos that are required. This photographer's brief is a back up so you can say afterwards "you didn't ask me to got those"

Best way to do podium speakers is during the rehearsal, if there is one. Or after they have finished.

Make sure that the slide on the screen is valid and adds to the photo, which means getting to know the technical bods, and/or waiting for the moment.

If it is sponsored make sure that the sponsors logo appears in enough photos

At the last conference I did podium shots needed circa ISO 1000, audience shots ISO 4000 (1/50th sec, f3.5) Podium shots might need less if lit more brightly.
Plenary rooms ISO 1000, f3.2, 1/125 (these were hotel rooms)
I have a full set of f2.8 lenses, under these conditions would have struggled with a 'kit' lens.

Flash bounce it off the ceiling, if at all possible (has to be a proper one, not the on-camera one) - take a set of spare batteries. Try desperately hard not to use it during presentations and if you do have to, use it very sparingly.

Find out how to move the focus point round so that the camera is focussing on what you want it to.
Point and shoot exposure settings will not be the best way to get 'good photos'.

Look out for Fire Exit signs behind people's heads.

I'd be concerned about the daylight rooms, since they will almost certainly have artificial light too. Then it becomes a case of working out at which position the presenter is standing that there will be the lowest clash between artificial light and daylight.

Wear dark clothes and soft soled flat shoes

Wait for the moment. Presenters smiling, laughing, using their hands. Audience laughing, applauding, looking interested, looking at the programme.

Presentations - don't be afraid to repose them just afterwards. "Can I just get you to stand here" and get the group smiling with the award.

Poster competition wtf?   

Bear in mind that the conference is ephemeral. Next year there will be another one. Your good photos from this year will be used like a half life decay graph.

Remember: if you don't get 'good photos' he probably won't ask you next year!

[lou boutin]

Wow thanks for all the great advice.  I'm not sure what ISO levels mean, so that's the stuff that will freak me out on the day, but all the other advice is really helpful. Thanks

BTw poster competition - academic posters of the findings from research projects.

[Aunt Maud]

Have you got access to the camera that you'll be using ?

[Kim]

ISO is basically how sensitive the camera's sensor is to light (ISO by analogy to different ISO standard sensitivity film compounds from the old days).  Electronic cameras allow you to adjust the sensitivity on the fly, though the more sensitive (higher ISO) it's set the more random noise ( a bit like film 'grain') will appear in the image.  How high you can set the ISO and how much noise you get as a result depends on the model of the camera.

You need a certain amount of light to make an image:  A faster shutter (fractions of a second) reduces motion blur but lets less light in.  A wider aperture (smaller 'f-number') lets more light in, but to get really wide apertures requires a more expensive lens, usually one with less zoom capability (aperture also affects how much of the scene can be in focus - 'depth of field').  Higher ISO settings can make up for less light reaching the sensor due to a given combination of shutter speed and aperture, but the image gets noisier.  Basically, it's a balancing act, and usually you'll set one or two of these to a desired value and let the camera work out the rest.  Which works well, until the camera+lens combination reaches the limits of its ability.

The problem you're likely to come up against is a general insufficiency of light.  So maybe you set a shutter speed to avoid blur, but the lens doesn't have a wide enough aperture to compensate, so the camera turns the ISO right up and you get a grainy image.  Or you lock the ISO down too and the image is underexposed (simply too dark).  Or you set the camera to full-auto, it finds a sensible balance and you get a nicely exposed noise-free image that looks like T42's second example.  Flash helps, because it puts extra light on the scene (and the camera is clever enough to know how much, so it adjusts its exposure accordingly), but then you end up with a scene lit by the camera flash - which brings in the hazards of red-eye, harsh shadows, 2-dimensional looking people etc.

[Tewdric]

Turn it down and invite someone from the local camera club to come and do it for a donation to club funds at the very least.  This is a difficult commercial assignment and you stand a very good chance of screwing it up through no fault of your own. 

It's a £500 gig, or was.

Would they ask someone with no qualifications or experience to retrain first aid at work?  Conduct the electrical safety testing?  Install a fire alarm?  Code the website? 

[Jurek]

Turn it down and invite someone from the local camera club to come and do it for a donation to club funds at the very least.  This is a difficult commercial assignment and you stand a very good chance of screwing it up through no fault of your own. 

It's a £500 gig, or was.

Would they ask someone with no qualifications or experience to retrain first aid at work?  Conduct the electrical safety testing?  Install a fire alarm?  Code the website?

^
Inna nutshell.

[Kim]

Would they ask someone with no qualifications or experience to [...] Code the website?

Quite possibly.  You can spot those company websites a mile off.

[Mrs Pingu]

If it's any consolation, the people you're photographing may be terrified as well.
At only my 2nd ever presentation in front of a big formal audience there was a photographer diving in and taking shots mid-flow and I wasn't expecting it at all. It took quite an effort not be distracted!

[T42]

Wow. If you don't already know about ISO levels then definitely what Tewdric said, if you can manage it without harm to your job.  Or do you get a feeling you're being set up?

To give you an idea of how hard this would be for an absolute beginner, if somebody took away my Nikon kit at the last moment, shoved Canon stuff at me and told me to get on with it I'd probably make a balls of it.

[SandyV]

Have you been able to look at last year's photos?  Could give you an idea of what is expected.

[David Martin]

For the presentations, talk to whoever is doing them to get the presentee to pause and pose specifically. After the first couple this will be part of the rhythm of the event. And get them to move in close to each other, much closer than they think is comfortable.

Poster presentations - will the spring for a superwide zoom? That is what you need.

I've done academic presentations - I used heavily gridded remote flash to work as a spotlight on the presenter that wouldn't fall on the screen and would provide the least distraction (falloff behind was into velvet curtains.) - then you expose for the slides and can get some nice pictures but that is a level of sophistication that is beyond you.

DSC_3819 by David Martin, on Flickr
This is in the local science centre and the flash is up on the balcony and set to just kiss the edge of the screen but to light up the presenter well. Unfortunately there were less than 10 folk at the talk so the challenge was making the audience look big!

Sir John Savill by David Martin, on Flickr
This was before his talk. I'd been asked to get some pictures during the talk and was told I could take up to 6 pictures during the talk. Fortunately I had the opportunity to get things set up before hand and a stand in to get the settings right because the host decided that before hand was the only time suitable, and that 2 frames was enough to plague the guest with (Head of the MRC). ANd no pictures during the talk. I got them a picture they liked very much as it told the story and the acknowledgement and thanks meant that I am always busy when they come calling again.

[Charlotte]

Tell them you're not doing it and you're going to book an awesome photographer called Charlotte Barnes to shoot the conference instead.  They'll be so delighted when they see the images that not only will they be pathetically apologetic for ever asking you to do it, they will almost certainly promote you to CEO and raise your salary to the point where you're able to buy expensive shoes every single day and never once worry about the price.

[Jaded]

Best answer yet ^^^ 

[T42]

Tell them you're not doing it and you're going to book an awesome photographer called Charlotte Barnes to shoot the conference instead.  They'll be so delighted when they see the images that not only will they be pathetically apologetic for ever asking you to do it, they will almost certainly promote you to CEO and raise your salary to the point where you're able to buy expensive shoes every single day and never once worry about the price.

And change your name to Imelda Marcos.

Best option.

[clarion]

Tell them you're not doing it and you're going to book an awesome photographer called Charlotte Barnes to shoot the conference instead.  They'll be so delighted when they see the images that not only will they be pathetically apologetic for ever asking you to do it, they will almost certainly promote you to CEO and raise your salary to the point where you're able to buy expensive shoes every single day and never once worry about the price.

This is The Answer.

[Aunt Maud]

Turn it down and invite someone from the local camera club to come and do it for a donation to club funds at the very least.  This is a difficult commercial assignment and you stand a very good chance of screwing it up through no fault of your own. 

It's a £500 gig, or was.

Would they ask someone with no qualifications or experience to retrain first aid at work?  Conduct the electrical safety testing?  Install a fire alarm?  Code the website?

It's only a couple of snaps Tewdric, anyone can do it...can't they ?

(click to show/hide)

NOT !.......Having done quite a few conferences, it ain't as easy as it looks. You'll need a zoom up to 300 mm with a big aperture, plus a proper whiz bang flash and plenty of batteries and make sure you've got a good seat in a good position at the front and not sitting on the floor.

[Jaded]

Sitting on the floor is not always a bad option. 2 & 3 are from the floor, I think.