Wedding in dark theater

[cochranb]

I have a wedding next weekend taking place in an old movie theater. The walls

are dark, and the ceiling is painted flat black (and about 20? high). I will

be using my 580 flash and I have two studio lights that I can set up. This

will not be a Church wedding so the studio lights will be able to be used

during the ceremony.

 

My question is should I use them, and where should I locate them?

 

If it wasn?t a black ceiling, I was just going to use the optical slave and

bounce light off the ceiling, but that wont work. I have thought about placing

them somewhat high and ?bare bulbing? them.

 

Any suggestions would be helpful.

 

Bryan

[conraderb]

sounds like you can't bounce, so I would next look at umbrellas. put them high and off to the side.

 

I would put #1 high to the right (in the balcony if you can) and at f4, #2 high to the left, f2.8.

 

I would avoid optical slave - guests cameras might trigger it. use quantum radio slaves if you have them...

 

bare bulbing should be okay- the black ceiling will just eat it up - but you will lose major power. if you don't have umbrellas, just use a white piece of paper to throw some light downward.

[picturesque]

Look at the following thread.

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00LUVF

 

As for setting up flashes during the ceremony, if Have done that, but I would limit it to one off camera flash that you can use both as rim lightin during the processional and key or accent light during the ceremony. If you set up two lights, you will have to be mindful of their placement when shooting the processional, and you might get flare. Bare bulb does not make sense in your scenario. Bare bulb works best in rooms where there is a lot of reflectance--not in dark rooms with black ceilings. I would just use the flashes bare headed. In my opinion, an umbrella (especially where there is little reflectance) is a waste of flash power, since at the distances used, the umbrella does not appreciably add to the size of the source of illumination, which is what actually makes the light softer. As for placement of the one light, it would be at the back of the ceremony area, probably on the left as you look at the "altar" from the back, angled between 45 and maybe 30 degrees from altar center (whatever is possible) and maybe placed on a balcony or higher if possible. Actually you can revert to two flashes if you can put them in a balcony. On the left because during the processional, one normally stands at the left of the aisle for processional shots, and this keeps the light out of your lens as you get the processional shots.

[tom_luongo1]

Put the movie screen down and bounce off of that. :-)