Work flow

[Kellie W]

Hi Damien, I hope you and your family are well. Crazy times we live in...

I was wondering about work process and flow. I have friends and family coming this weekend every 30 minutes to do some Christmas photos in front of a printed backdrop. I will have my camera on a tripod with a flash on the camera. I will also have set up side lighting (left and right) and a light above and behind to cut out shadows. Now sometimes I will photograph the whole family so the picture should be horizontal landscape. After the family group is done the parents may want a photo of just a child. When I am photographing the child, my instinct is to turn the camera sideways to capture more in the frame. But when I do this the flash is now to the side which makes the lighting is all wrong in my set up.

So my question is shooting in raw with the camera in horizontal landscape position, how much do I give up in the photo (pixels) by shooting a picture of the child that will eventually be cropped vertically into a portrait, so as not to mess up my lighting, camera position etc. These are rapid sessions every 30 minutes, so time is a factor. (Most of these photos will be going on Christmas cards and maybe an 8" x 10".)

I sure hope that was clear.

Thank you for your time.

[Damien Symonds]

Remind me how many megapixels your camera shoots?

[Kellie W]

I have a Canon EOS 5d Mark iii.

 

[Damien Symonds]

Ok, so if you cropped a landscape to portrait, you should still be safe?

https://www.damiensymonds.net/2014/03/how-aggressively-can-i-crop.html

[Kellie W]

Great article.

Not the best photo here by any means, but the child is in the frame at the appropriate size. This marquee is over 7million pixels. I will print it out and keep it with me so I keep the children in the frame at the appropriate size.

Thanks again.

In actuality I would crop wider to get the holiday backdrop also in the photo. (And because you say to crop loosely).

[Kellie W]

I assume that this decision is made on the raw unedited file before editing? (Don't actually crop just make the decision because once you add layers you add pixels?)

[Kellie W]

Or am I confusing pixels and file size bytes?

[Damien Symonds]

6 minutes ago, Kellie W said:

I assume that this decision is made on the raw unedited file before editing? (Don't actually crop just make the decision because once you add layers you add pixels?)

Yes, I think so too.

5 minutes ago, Kellie W said:

Or am I confusing pixels and file size bytes?

I don't understand the question, sorry.

[Kellie W]

Its ok, I figured it out myself. I was mixing things up. Confusing file sizes (in MB) with pixels in the photo. I remembered another lesson by you about making your own cropping tool based on your camera's features when you don't know the size the client will print and it all clicked.

Thanks again.