I need a little photography advice please?

L

LDS

Hi!

So I might be doing a little... actually a massive project.

There is a restaurant my friend is working at in 5 star hotel and they asked her to do something HUGE.

Basically, they want something like Last Supper on a 2m Height and 20m Long picture of their staff by a long table... So that is a huge picture, it's like a billboard.

We both are very keen to do it of course because of the reputation we can get (having our project in 5 stars hotel by the airport for at least 20 years to come!)

BUT... We are not really sure about how... lol... Well we do know how but we are not too sure and don't want to waste anybody's time, so here's a question:

1 - we have 2 cameras, Canon 60D and Canon 7D - what lens would be need to use for great resolution? (price doesn't matter)

2 - what do you think are the best settings in a camera for such a big resolution (size of the picture?)

3 - do you think we could take the picture of all the 13 staff by the long table in one shot or would we have to take separate close ups for better/sharper quality?

Any other advice please? :)

Lukas
 
You will probably get best results from stitching together multiple images rather than trying to capture an image that wide in a single shot at any kind of worthwhile resolution. You might be able to manage it with two shots, and if so you could, at least in theory, trigger both cameras at the same time and then just have to worry about stitching together those two images.

You may have better luck tipping the camera on its side and doing portrait (vs landscape) oriented photos of each person individually, and then stitch all of those together. Any way you slice it though, you're going to almost certainly end up doing a bunch of post work on it.
 
20metres long.... How close will the photo be viewed from?

As Will said though, best case scenario put it on a pano tripod (obviously a normal tripod also works pretty well) and take photos of each person and all gaps, you need full coverage of it.

But if thats on the side of a building which will only ever been seen from at least 50m away then you might get away with just one or two images stitched.
 
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Take pictures of all the seperate parts and then stitch it all together in Photoshop - then you have max resolution of everything.

Alternately, you could look into renting a medium format Hasselblad, Mamiya or similar.

As others have said, it really depends at what distance people will be viewing, and where the billboard/poster will be hung. If people are going to be able to walk right up to it and touch it, your tolerance is going to be a lot higher than on the side of a building, where it can be somewhat pixelated, but still look 100% fine from a distance.
 
about the distance:

It is going to be inside the restaurant, they have a huge wall and they want to put the picture on a wall for many years so some tables are right under the wall, so... pretty damn close :)

We were of course thinking of doing separate shots but hoped there is a solution for that, guess there is none...

Will, you're right, it is a good idea to put the cameras on two tripods and take shots together at the same time! That's good to keep in mind, thanks! :)

If anyone else has any other suggestions, please feel free! :)
 
LDS said:
Will, you're right, it is a good idea to put the cameras on two tripods and take shots together at the same time! That's good to keep in mind, thanks! :)

If anyone else has any other suggestions, please feel free! :)
Click to expand...

I personally think there'd be too much parallax error doing that. That being said I haven't actually done it before but I know moving the camera a bit can stuff things up easily when stitching
 
jax_rox said:
Take pictures of all the seperate parts and then stitch it all together in Photoshop - then you have max resolution of everything.

Alternately, you could look into renting a medium format Hasselblad, Mamiya or similar.
..............
Click to expand...

+1

No lens can upgrade your cameras to enough resolution.
You need a whole different kind of camera with a very high-res back.
 
I'm actually really jealous. This sounds like an awesome artistic challenge.

I agree with the others, most of the magic is going to happen in post.

I would start by getting general headshots of the folks who are going to be featured.
Do a rough mockup so you're sure where/who you want each individual to be/represent from the painting.
Then I would study the shit out of the painting's lighting and the angles and positioning of each of the figures in it. Go into each photo shoot and BE FUCKING METICULOUS about this aspect to get it exact. You will thank yourself later as this can be one of the big differences between a cute idea and a strikingly well executed one.

So after you've done all that you'll want to do a shoot with the background foreground elements. Again, get the colors/lighting/positioning as accurate to the original as possible.

Now comes the fun part. Stitching everything together, color correction to make it look correct, and here's where I would have some extra fun to give it that little bit more 'OOMF':
I would import the elements, once edited, into a program like illustrator and start adding in some "mixed media" stuff. By that I mean, add paint and brush textures, tracing the photos.
Then move all those files back into photoshop and play around with blending it all until it's perfect.
Slap some nice super hi-res canvas texture on there, etc etc etc.
Add, subtract, get feedback, rinse, repeat.

But that's just what I would do if someone had handed me this killer awesome project. :)
 
Will Vincent said:
I wouldn't bother with the canvas texture.. instead, I'd just tell the client to pony up for a canvas print. ;)
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What was I thinking?
ayyo.gif
 
Hasselblad H5D200ms
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ..._3013666_H5D_200MS_Medium_Format_Digital.html

With
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/264710-REG/Hasselblad_3023035_Wide_Angle_35mm_f_3_5.html

Light soft for texture and shoot a 6 exposure run. 600 megapixels.

Just make sure you get the client to pony up to rent the camera and lens for a week so you can "test" with it. You will hate yourself when you have to return this setup.

ETA: A rental house near you. http://www.procentre.co.uk/rental-cameras-hasselblad.php
 
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