Lighting a Banquet Room with On-Camera Speedlight?

[cwcaesar]

My wife and I are going to be at a Baby Shower at a nearby Church this Sunday. (We are expecting our third girl) Of course, I will have my camera with me, but I have some concerns about the lighting in the room. I have taken pictures there before and was not at all thrilled with the lighting. This room is big enough to have a basketball court, and is 30 to 40 feet high. It has white walls to about 10 feet up, and then turns to brown the rest of the way up, including the ceiling. 3 windows on one wall, on other windows. Too few halogen lamps in the ceiling.

So, last time I took photos there all I had was the pop-up flash and a D7000. Now I have a SB-700 and a D600. I feel I will gain something in the ISO between the two cameras, but not enough difference to overcome the poor lighting. I don't have a ceiling to bounce the flash off of, and they arrange the tables away from the walls, so I can't bounce off the walls either.

Given these tools, and the assumption that I will leave the SB-700 on the camera, what recomendations would you make as to how to direct the light? I am afraid to point it straight at the subjects because of the effects that it gives. I do have the provided diffuser that comes with the flash. The flash also has the at little white square that pops up from the end.

What would you recommend? Thanks!

 

[TCampbell]

Although the speedlight is more powerful than the on-camera flash, if the speedlight is still on the camera and pointed forward, you'll pretty much get the same look.

IF the room has a "white" ceiling and preferably not very high, THEN you can bounce the flash off the ceiling and get a more all-around light with soft shadows (and if you're too close you get "raccoon eyes" from the shadows of the eye-sockets, but the cure is to feather just a little light forward from the camera -- slide out the bounce-card and it'll push some light forward and fill in the eye-shadows.

You will STILL have the inverse-square law... that says that each time the distance from the flash increase by a factor of 1.4 the amount of light will be cut in half. Suppose you have subjects at 7', 10', 14', and 20' and suppose you set the flash exposure so that the person at 10' is properly exposed. What happens to everyone else? Well... the person at 7' is over-exposed having literally DOUBLE the light, the person at 14' is under-exposed having literally HALF of the light, and the person at 20' is really under-exposed having only ONE QUARTER of the light. This assumes you're firing the light forward (not bouncing). Bouncing does help even out the light because the distance you measure is the distance that the LIGHT has to travel... not the distance from the lens to the subject.

You can make a large room look better by "lagging" the shutter. That means you set a shutter speed much slower than you'd think. Once the flash delivers it's light, it's done... so if you set a 1/50 sec. exposure, the flash will freeze your main subjects in a blink but the shutter will collect ambient light from the room for that full 1/50th sec. exposure. If you had set a fast shutter speed (say 1/200th) then the back of the room would be extremely dark compared to your subject.

If you're thinking of the little "diffuser" that slides out and swings down in front of the flash, that's really a wide-angle "diffuser" (not the same thing). It's design to spread the light extra wide for use when the lens angle of view is wider than the flash can normally handle. When we talk about diffuse light in flash, what we really mean is not the angle that the light spreads out ... but rather the size of the source of light. If you shoot a flash into an umbrella (either a reflector or a shoot-through) the light seems to originate from the entire surface of the umbrella -- creating a large light source. You can get a shoot-through umbrella (it'd probably cost you about $10), get the flash off the camera, and it'll create a nice broad light source that comes from an angle so you get nice gentle shadows -- a much improved look (although you still have the inverse-square law so you're not going to light up the whole room.) A shoot-through umbrella often steals about 1 stop worth of light. The nice thing about a shoot through umbrella is you can have someone hand-hold it... they're cheap, portable, and easy to set up and take down (as easy as opening and closing an umbrella).

 

[cwcaesar]

What about the little snap-on diffuser? Will that help any with the harshness?

 

[Derrel]

Peter Gregg has multiple videos on how to make a GOOD craft foam bouncer. THIS is exactly the type of device you will want to have for shooting in a huge, high-ceilinged room big enough to have a basketball court.

 

[hirejn]

Diffusers aren't bad. On-camera flash has one look -- harsh -- unless you bounce it. Since bouncing is out, it'll be difficult to get away from the on-camera flash look, even with a diffuser. What you could do is use the pop-up as a commander to the off-camera flash and hold it in your other hand for a more angled light. Rotate the head so the sensor is facing the camera but the head is at the subject. The diffuser will help even more if you do that. I would set the ISO to 800 because going higher just adds noise and will unlikely be worth it since you're using flash anyway. Dragging the shutter isn't necessary. If you do it for every shot, some movement will register around the subject even when the subject is sharp, and you might not want that look. It's a specific look I usually reserve for moving subjects. If you want to try it, set the shutter to about 1/30 or 1/15 and turn on rear curtain sync. Normally a shutter speed of about 1/80 to 1/200 is fine. I would shoot in manual mode; it's easier than you think. Just set 1/125 and the lowest f-number you have. TTL flash will fill in the rest.

 

[willis_927]

Peter Gregg has multiple videos on how to make a GOOD craft foam bouncer. THIS is exactly the type of device you will want to have for shooting in a huge, high-ceilinged room big enough to have a basketball court.

I've made VERY similar bounce cards to this before. They work great.

OP, all you have to do is head down to a Michael's Craft store (or probably any craft store), and pick up a couple sheets (black and white) of "creatology fun foam". The ones I bought were 12"x18" sheets. Glue a black and white sheet together and cut out shapes similar to the video Derrel posted. You'll need some Velcro strips as well, or else heavy elastic bands to hold it on to your flash. Depending on the size you make the card, you can probably make 2-4 bounce cards out of 1 sheet.

I've also used this foam to make a snoot, and it works pretty well.

 

[ronlane]

Hey Derrel's back. Refreshed and ready to go.

 

[bunny99123]

YouTube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=9ybnqG_eFoU

Peter Gregg has multiple videos on how to make a GOOD craft foam bouncer. THIS is exactly the type of device you will want to have for shooting in a huge, high-ceilinged room big enough to have a basketball court.

Thanks for the link... I like it!

 

[cwcaesar]

I can't see the YouTube video at work, but I will watch it tonight.

I have always shot in Manual Mode, I don't even know what exactly what the different auto and priority modes do yet. Someday I will take the time to figure them out, but I feel at home in Manual for now as I have all the control.

I do have a question about how to set the camera to rear curtain sync. I have tried to do this by holding the button on the front of the camera (I forget what it is called, but it correlates to the flash) while spinning the command dial. The Owner's Manual doesn't give any more instructions than this, but it only switches between two of the settings listed and doesn't cycle between all the modes listed in the manual. Do I need to have a speed light connected for this option to be available? Or is there another setting that is preventing this option from coming up?

 

[cwcaesar]

I watched the YouTube video. All I can say is THANKS DERREL!!!!! This is exactly what I was looking for. I am going to see if they have the materials at Wal-Mart or Hobby Lobby as Michael's is pretty far out of the way for me. I will try to build one by the weekend and let you know how it goes.

With this device attached, should I still try to hold the flash Off-Camera? Thanks!

 

[TCampbell]

The problem with a diffuser on a hot-shoe mounted flash is that the width of the diffuser (the area from which the light seems to originate) is relatively small.

Suppose you stand a pencil up on end shine a light from a pinpoint source at the pencil. That pencil will cast a very definite shadow. But imagine that instead of a pinpoint source of light, you bounce the light off a parabolic umbrella which has a diameter of about 4' and the umbrella is only about 4' away from the pencil. Now you've created a light source which, relative to the pencil, has an angular width of about 60º (the angle as measured at the position of the pencil from the LEFT edge of the umbrella to the RIGHT edge of the umbrella is a 60º angle). The pencil will not cast a shadow.

Diffusers work best when the apparent width of the lit surface is broad RELATIVE to the subject. If you have a wide surface, but it's far away then it may as well be a pinpoint surface and will create sharp shadows. Case in point: The sun. It's 109 times wider than our planet. But at 93 million miles away it appears as a near pinpoint source and creates shadows with well-defined edges rather than soft edges.

Back to the parabolic umbrella example... if we move the umbrella back so that instead of being 4' away, it's 8' away, the angle will be cut in half... now the light originates source is about 30º wide, which is still pretty good. At 16' away it's still providing a 15º angle... which, while not as good as the broader angles still isn't too bad.

NOW... use a small diffuser which is 1' wide (which is pretty big for an on-camera flash). At 4' away it's a 15º angle. At 8' away it's a 7.5º angle. At 16' away (e.g. a group shot) it's a 3.75º angle... which means it may as well be a pin-point source of light as it will create shadows with fairly well-defined edges. And remember... that math assumed a 1' wide light source. I've seen "diffusers" which barely make the flash a few inches wider than it already was without the diffuser.

Smallish diffusers will work IF you are fairly close to the subject. The shorter the distance between the light and the subject, the wider the apparent angle and the softer the edges will be on the shadows.

A diffuser (let's pick on Gary Fong) is still helpful if you think about how it's really working. A Fong diffuser is a rubbery (silicone?) ring around the top of the flash that has a huge hole in the end. When you point your flash straight up to bounce off your neutral white ceiling, most of the light does, in fact, just go straight up. Mostly what you get is bounce flash the same as if you weren't using his product. But SOME of the light catches the diffuser material, scattering the light and making the diffuser glow. That creates a point source in the direction of the camera, rather than the ceiling. The result is that it will fill in some of the shadow that would have resulted if the light was ONLY coming from the ceiling... so it softens eye-sockets, necks, etc. But his diffuser isn't really creating a particularly broad light source and it's not creating diffused light if you're more than a few feet from the subject. It's mostly working to feather in some light so that it comes from two different sources instead of just one.

You can create soft light simply by having two different flashes even if they don't have diffusers. An on-camera flash creates a flat look -- no shadow and no dimensionality. A side-light creates shadows so you have the dimensionality but the shadows are harsh because it's not diffused. But when you use them together, the side-light creates the dimensionality (but it's harsh) and on-camera light washes much of the shadows out... they're still present, but they're gentle rather than harsh. It's a much better look than either of them would have been on their own. It would be better still if the light was actually diffused, but it's not bad for an event/wedding photographer who has to be on the move and can't be moving through an event venue with gear that has to be set up and taken down. For closer in shots, carry a shoot-through umbrella.

 

[slow231]

if you're dragging the shutter and relying on ambient to fill significant portions of your background (or even worse, if it fills some portions/angles of your subject), be careful about matching the color temp of the ambient lighting. color temp mismatching is harder to fix in post, particularly if they're concurrently lighting your subject. i'm all for using the flash, but it does have it's nuances, and it's easy to end up with sub par results. If possible do some test shots at the venue beforehand and see if you can dial in the look you desire. Tcampbell gave some good advice on ways you could proceed.

you can really do some nice things with good thoughtful lighting, but with the primes you have listed i wouldn't foresee too much of a problem without a flash. I don't know exactly how dark your venue is, but i'd be hard pressed to come across a shooting situation where a d600 + 2.8 or faster glass couldn't produce something useful.

 

[Bush]

I was going to give my two cents but I can see this subject is well covered

 

[2WheelPhoto]

speedlights....nevermind hehe

 

[Derrel]

The Fresnel lens on the front of my Vivitar 285HV flash sitting here on my desk measures 18.5 picas wide by 11.5 picas tall; a large square-ish foam bouncer measures 50x50 picas. Thats 212.75 picas squared in the case of the bare flash. A 50 pica x50 pica foam bouncer would have an area of 2,500 square picas. A bit under 12 times the area of the bare flash head. I am using pics since I happen to have a pica rule right here, handy. A pica is about 1/6 of an inch in length.