Please Help ! I got volunteered as a the photographer for an event

I have been "volunteered" by a friend to shoot an event. It is actually a meeting of about 10+ people. It will be mid-morning in a room that has a lot of light and large windows (it is supposed to be grey and raining outside).

I am mainly a landscape, nature, street photographer, so I have never done events before, so my questions are about what lenses to use and technique to get head-shots with a lot of bokeh behind..

I have:

A D7500 with a 18-140mm f/3.5-5.6, a 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G and a 35mm f/1.8G (all DX lenses)

A D600 with a 24-85mm f/3.5-4.5G ED VR and a Tamron SP 70-300mm 4-5.6 Di VC

I am going to take both, but favour the D7500 (better ISO and faster)

The videos I have watched in YT mention using Auto ISO, but my question is:

Which lens and at what focal length should I use in order to get a decent headshot with a lot of bokeh behind?

I guess I can try to do some practice shots with my family to develop technique, but was looking for some advice first...

Hi Alan,

Thanks for the advice.

I am going to experiment tomorrow with the D7500 with the 35mm and the 18-140mm from further away / across the room.

Best regards,
Hector

In my Bohemian interlude from Engineering, I worked for a local news magazine. Bounced or diffused flash was the norm for this sort of gig. I had a Metz Hammer Head bolted onto my FM2. You will see wedding photographers use flash even in good light, to avoid uneven lighting and shadows.

Basically you need a zoom + on camera flash. If you can bounce the flash off the ceiling if it is white, or use a diffuser. Or just use the D7500 with your 18-105 at high ISO

Yes, I have a rather aged Speedlight (from the days of film). Will have to dig it out..

Be careful! If the flash is old enough, it may not work at TTL voltage levels. Some old flashes can fry your camera. FWIW

Im going to be very honest, to shoot an event with the results your expecting to get. todays event shooters are using state of the art eye auto focus FF cameras that can basically shoot iso 12800 near noisless images and use 28.75 2.8 zoom + 70 200 2.8 zoom no flash and just use the jpgs out of camera with minimal processing, with the right gear its a walk in the park, with older cameras that cant auto as accurate as todays offerings and slower lens your asking for high in-field experience to get the shots your after. sure you can get the shots but you need to put alot of effort in before the shoot and when the pressure is on you cant be fiddleing with your camera settings.

Thank you everyone for your help and recommendations !

Reporting back on how it went:

It went rather well. I took all of my cameras and lenses, but only used the D7500 with the 18-140 and ISO between 1000 and 1600, I wanted the 8 fps and the buffer that it offers, compared to the 5 fps of the D600, to catch people as they moved and avoid eyes being shut etc.

I got some decent photos which the people are happy with, well almost all. The creative brief was to take photos with the theme of "the making of", and one person wanted to us the photos for social media. You cannot please everyone.

I will be going back in two weeks to shoot it again as everyone put their jackets and bags all over the place, so many of photos have a slightly bokeh winter coat or backpack in the background. I naturally didn't see this until too late (I was a bit on edge so didn't notice it as I was concentrating on the people, live and learn).

All in all, I really enjoyed it. I got along well with everyone, they eventually got used to the click click click of the shutter and ignored me.

As a result of this, I finally worked up the courage to buy a used D850 and will be getting the 70-200 f/2.8. There were very few shots below 70mm, exception being a group shot, and I can change out for my 24-85mm for that.

D600 isn't going anywhere though! It is my walk-around camera. D7500 neither !