Lighting a large room

<p>Hello, all<br>

I have a bit of a problem - I have my very first envent photography gig coming up in a couple of days so i went to check out the room yesterday and and it turns out the room has a dark ceiling, so there goes my plan to use a bounced flash to light my scene, I have soft boxes and brackets, but that doesn't really help me with the wide shots of the entire room. Also, setting up large soft boxes is not an option, this is a very classy event and venue, and i'd like to keep a low profile.<br>

My question is, what would a pro do?<br>

thank you.<br>

Armando</p><div></div>

<p>For what part of the wedding, and how much of the room must show? The ceiling is dark but the walls aren't. I'd be bouncing off the walls :^) and if using off camera flashes, dragging the shutter (probably withe the flashes gelled).</p>

<p>Hi, Nadine<br>

Thank you for the quick response :)<br>

at least for a couple of shots, i'd like to get as much of the room as possible and ideally, i'd like the background to be well lit as well.<br>

the opposite wall has very little surface to bounce from, so i'm a little concerned one side of my subjects' faces will be dramatically darker, i guess it couldn't hurt to go back and take a couple of test shots.<br>

when you said gel the flash, did you mean to match the incandescent lights' temperature?<br>

again, thank you for taking the time to answer.</p>

<p>Again--for what part of the wedding? The ceremony, formals, pre-ceremony, reception? Makes a difference.</p>

<p>If the ceremony, I'd treat it like a no flash church ceremony and go flashless. So obviously, getting the whole room isn't a problem.</p>

<p>If the formals, pre-ceremony or couple romantics, I would set up my off camera flash with modifier, gel the flash to match the tungsten temperature, and drag the shutter deeply, depending upon subject motion.</p>

<p>If the reception, use my two off camera flashes, maybe bounced off the white wall, with an on camera flash.</p>

<p>I wouldn't think bouncing off the white wall would give you dark shadow side faces unless the faces are turned away from the wall. You can, of course, use your on camera flash for frontal fill, with a white card or similar.</p>

<p>or get an assistant to follow you with a lightstick.</p>

<p>Nadine, it's actually not a wedding, it's a Corporate event, sorry I wasn't clear. And you my friend are a genius! I was freaking out and I guess that impaired my judgement - i thought i some how had to choose between the two :)<br>

I guess an assistant would have helped, too, but like i mentioned before, i need to keep a low profile and a difused fill flash works fine.<br>

thanks a bunch, guys.</p>

<p>OK--well, if you could set up off camera lights, I might try bouncing them off the white/light wall (aimed up high) from out of the way locations (in corners, etc. to avoid knock over). I might flag or gobo them too, so people are not annoyed by bright flashes going off constantly. With on camera fill.</p>

<p>Or, just use a higher ISO, and white card on the on camera flash, dragging the shutter. Even though the ceiling is dark, a white card pointed straight up from the upward flash head is worthwhile, because the white walls will help with reflectivity. Yet the white balance is more flash-like. I'd gel the flash though, so the backgrounds don't turn ugly orange. You will get flash shadows with this set up, so keep people away from walls. Depending upon the activity, you may need to revert to a single flash, because the bounced flashes may be either too distracting, or not conducive to the positioning of the activity. However, whenever you are with your back to the white wall, I'd turn the flash head and bounce off it.</p>

<p>For overall shots of the room, I'd try to incorporate off camera flashes, perhaps direct flash heads, combined with shutter drag.</p>

<p>If there is a mezzanine, that could open up some possibilities with off camera flashes too.</p>

<p>Is that a balcony or accessible door up top. I've lit the Folger Shakespeare library at the LOC which looks EXACTLY like this but with wooden walls, by putting two off camera flashes up high in the balcony and lighting down. You could then supplement fill with on camera flash, all incorporating shutter drag.</p>

<p>Exactly, Alex. Saw that little opening up there too, but sometimes you aren't allowed up there or you can't put light stands there. I was also thinking the left wall might have a mezzanine that isn't shown.</p>

<p>That's why the most important part of your job is to sweet talk and make friends with the venue staff!</p>

<p>Here are some examples of "black hole" lighting at the Library of Congress. The first two are set up shots with the lights opposite eachother and feathered towards eachother to eliminate hotspots underneath them. You can see the shadow of the first light in the second photo of the second light. <br>

As Nadine pointed out, I'm not sure what kind of access you have to up high, but that's why the most important skill you can develop is sweet talking and making friends with the venue staff.<br>

(BTW after this event I spoke to the venue about changing the bulbs in the lights by the podium to match the color of the rest of the room and she thanked me and told me no one had ever mentioned that to her....I wasn't sure if that was a thank you or an insult)</p>

<p><img src="http://www.aperryProductions.com/img/v11/p635601334-2.jpg" alt="" /><img src="http://www.aperryProductions.com/img/v7/p876237218-2.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="267" /><img src="http://www.aperryProductions.com/img/v10/p989114899-2.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="267" /><img src="http://www.aperryProductions.com/img/v6/p743133159-2.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="267" /></p>

<p>I called the Library of Congress to check. She says it was an insult.</p>

<p>Just a thought, but would one of those Gary Phong Light-Sphere things work effectively in a room this large? Guess it all depends on if you really want all parts of the whole room equally illuminated in the pic.</p>

<p>Don't think so, Alan. The Lightsphere is not all that flexible, and in a darker room, outputs light forward, making the results more like white card bounce anyway.</p>

<p>Alex--you are right--wish they taught you schmoozing 101 in photo school. :^)</p>

<p>Actually Nadine, the original Lightsphere is meant to output light directly upwards - any diffusion is accomplished through the light bouncing back from the covered top and through the prismatic plastic tupperware...;-) However, as Gary Fong shows in his instruction videos, with very high ceilings, you can remove the top cover and let the light really blast high up.</p>

<p>But returning to the original question, I would merge all suggestions: place a couple of remote flashes at the two corners of the room, as high as possible, pointing up, gelled - of course - with the Lightspheres on them (WITH the covers on) to ensure maximum light dispersal and make sure I had the two lights behind me (or at least, not included in the frame) at all times...;-) I think that would work miracles...;-)</p>

<p>My view of the place is, apart from its beauty, that it will end up being very dark when trying to capture it in available light AND manage to grab some good portraits...</p>

<p>yes, it would be pretty sweet if i could set up a couple of monolights on the balcony, I'll find out monday if that's an option.</p>

<p>Alex, good job - how powerful are the lights you used for this job? I own two 400W/s monolights and two speedlights GN 120' @ 100 ISO. I've never needed more power than that (photography is not my main area, I'm more of a videographer), in fact, i always set the output to 1/4 and 1/8 - so i don't really know how those light would perform in a larger area with such high ceilings, my guess would be that it would be ok, but not if i'm going to use a lightbank or bounce of the wall. what do you think?<br>

Thank you, guys.</p>

 

<p>Marios--have a couple of Lightspheres. Use them sometimes. I still don't think they'd work well. With the dome, you get too much light pushed out the sides (I guess I shouldn't have said front), with it off, you aren't going to get much from the ceiling.</p>

<p>The monolights will be OK to bounce off walls. The speedlights may be pressed for bouncing, depending upon your ISO and aperture, if you need them to fire all night long. Used direct (like Alex), 1/4 power should be OK and will probably work all night long on batteries.</p>

<p>Armando - That was either two sb-28's or one sb-28 and a vivitar-285, plus a canon 580 on camera. A mono would be fine, just depends on how much you're willing to push the shutter / ISO. As Nadine said, direct light. Power I used them between 1/4 to 3/4 power for power/recycle balance. The things aren't lighting up the entire room, just helping. It's more important to be familiar with what you have and what you can do with them.</p>

<p>Hi, guys<br>

i wouldn't want to drag the shutter ; if i could get enough even ambient light bouncing off the walls or with a couple of 7' chimeras on the balcony so that my background is about 1 to 1.5 fstops darker than my subjects, i'll be happy. am i still ok, or would i need to buy any additional monolights to achieve that?<br>

also, i'm a big fan of bokeh, so except for the group and super wide shots, i'll be shooting with my iris on the wide end of the range and I usually try not to go higher than 400 ISO (we hates noise)<br>

Also, what do you guys think of the effect i'm trying to achieve, would you guys do something differently in terms of the mood you'd try to set.<br>

Thank you for all your help, Nadine and Alex.</p>

<p>I personally don't think you'll be able to light up the entire place enough with flash to avoid dragging the shutter a bit. If you drag the shutter a bit, I don't think you'll need additional monolights.</p>

<p>Be careful of using a wide aperture all the time. For corporate shots, sometimes you need more DOF, rather than very little. For isolating one or two people, shallow DOF is great. If you need to photograph a group of people, you will need more DOF. This might necessitate changing the power of the off camera flashes, depending upon the activity or kind of shot. Or changing the ISO and shutter speed to achieve a particular f stop.</p>

<p>I agree, you're going to need to drag the shutter. I'm not sure what your aversion is to doing that, you're simply using the light that's already there. If you don't drag, you're going to need a lot more light and you'll have shadows where your ambient was providing "fill" but would no longer be detectable without it. By dragging you'll always have a minimum "safe" background "fill" level and add extra detail to your shots.<br>

<br /><br /><br>

I didn't post any of my group shots, but as Nadine said, watch your aperture. I didn't post any of my wider group shots because I didn't want name tags posted, but I keep one camera with a wider lens set to around 4.5 - 5.6 for those groups, and my long lens I keep at f/2.8, but then balance iso / exposure so they both offer good effects with the same power of off camera lights. It's not an issue for me as I also keep an on-camera TTL flash on my wider lens camera that will help out with the smaller aperture effect on my off-camera lights.<br>

<br /><br /> I understand you may hate noise, and that's your prerogative, but I choose to go with a balance of noise / ambiance. In the above pictures, many people would call them under-exposed, but I'm trying to communicate the darker mood / warm feeling of the event. If I went with a lower iso, the flash power would have to be higher giving more of a spotlight effect, and the pictures would look like they were on stage, which might make for a "technically" better exposed image of the people, but it wouldn't reflect how people remembered the event. <br /><br />Corporate social events are more about the people IN the PLACE (in my opinion) so capturing just a spot light of the people wouldn't cut it. This is all subjective....and if you're not happy with ISO above 400 then certainly do what you need to do to capture your images. There's very few scenarios that I haven't been able to manage with my speedlites, even if monos would be helpful, they're not worth the luggging of equipment for the number I would need to completely light up that room, but they may be worth it to you. I'm always happy to give advice...but I realize my advice isn't always right for everything so take it with a grain (insert grain/iso joke here).</p>

<p>Hah! good one, Alex.<br>

sunday I got an additional 1000W/S monolight, that brings that grand totatl to 1800W/S not counting the two off camera speedlights (accent) and the one on my camera (fill) - I also went to the venue to find out if i could set up my equipment on the balcony, turns out i can't, so there goes plan B; not only that, the white walls are not very white, more like a very dark beige, almost grey. I think I would need three times as much light to do what i wanted.<br>

anyway.. thank you guys for all your help, I'll post a few shots of the event in case you are interested.</p>

<p>Can't wait to see the pictures. The room is beautiful. Hope it went well!</p>

<p>By the way, where is this?</p>