Seeking Advice on a Indoor shoot at Night

[coabrown]

Hello!

My name is Courtney and I really need some advice. I've been working on my photography in my spare time for 3 years. I’ve been hired by my friend to do some event photography for a tea party in two weeks. It will be indoors with incandescent lighting and candlelight. (And these two hideously low hanging HUGE pendant lamps that seem to be about 40 watts.) The ceilings are 13-15 ft tall and they’re white.

Here’s what I have in my bag:

Canon EOS 20D (max ISO of 1600)
Canon EF 50 mm 1:1.8 .45m/1.5 ft
Canon EFS 18055mm 1:3.5-5.6
Sigma 55-200 mm 1:4-5.6
Speedlite 580Ex11 flash
And a generic tripod.

Here’s my problem. The tea party won’t start until 4:30 and it’s in NYC. That means I have at most 15 minutes of natural light before the sun sinks down below the buildings around me and I’m basically shooting indoors at night. On top of that, I went to the venue and it's really dark. I haven't had any experience shooting in this kind of light and I'm really concerned that I'm going to ruin it.

I would really appreciate any tips, tricks or lens recommendations you have. I plan on buying a diffusion dome for my flash as well as an flash bracket. I’m also looking for a faster lens that allows me to get more light to the sensor so that I can take sharper photos. I plan on renting lenses for this event since I can't afford a new one and there are several places in Chelsea I can rent from.

I would really appreciate any and all help you can give me.

Thank you very much!

[Take12]

Originally Posted by coabrown

Hello!

My name is Courtney and I really need some advice. I've been working on my photography in my spare time for 3 years. I’ve been hired by my friend to do some event photography for a tea party in two weeks. It will be indoors with incandescent lighting and candlelight. (And these two hideously low hanging HUGE pendant lamps that seem to be about 40 watts.) The ceilings are 13-15 ft tall and they’re white.

Here’s what I have in my bag:

Canon EOS 20D (max ISO of 1600)
Canon EF 50 mm 1:1.8 .45m/1.5 ft
Canon EFS 18055mm 1:3.5-5.6
Sigma 55-200 mm 1:4-5.6
Speedlite 580Ex11 flash
And a generic tripod.

Here’s my problem. The tea party won’t start until 4:30 and it’s in NYC. That means I have at most 15 minutes of natural light before the sun sinks down below the buildings around me and I’m basically shooting indoors at night. On top of that, I went to the venue and it's really dark. I haven't had any experience shooting in this kind of light and I'm really concerned that I'm going to ruin it.

I would really appreciate any tips, tricks or lens recommendations you have. I plan on buying a diffusion dome for my flash as well as an flash bracket. I’m also looking for a faster lens that allows me to get more light to the sensor so that I can take sharper photos. I plan on renting lenses for this event since I can't afford a new one and there are several places in Chelsea I can rent from.

I would really appreciate any and all help you can give me.

Thank you very much!

Hi Courtney,

that's an interesting gig to sink your teeth into!

The way I see it you would need much more light. I would set up 3 or 4 580EXs on their own tripods, pointing straight up, bouncing off the ceiling, remotely triggered by another 580EX on-camera that also provides fill (to prevent raccoon eyes; so set it at 1/4 output power).
I would forget about that diffuser dome since it is worse than useless in anything but very confined, reflective spaces: it will waste 3/4 of your flash gun's output in the other directions, horribly reduce your DoF, and not soften its shadows at all. It is far too small for that. Get your soft light via that big white ceiling!

Of course you shoot RAW?

Avoid wide angle if you can, because that affects faces and bodies with very UNflattering perspective distortion. Around 80 or 100mm is most flattering.

You can try to catch some of the ambient light by using a slow shutter speed of, say, 1/30th sec, if you use 400 or 800 ISO. I wouldn't go slower than 1/30th, when shooting animated people (with flash light).
Shoot test shots on location asap to find out how viable that is. Because if it is not, you can dispense with slow shutter speeds altogether, avoid their drawbacks, simply set X-sync speed, and concentrate on using the (bounced) flash light best.

Have fun!

[swampler]

And if you use Take12's method, I would add that you should set and use a custom white balance, to accommodate the light reflecting off the walls that may not be white.

[coabrown]

Thank you so much! I've been worried sick no one would be able to help me.

The way I see it you would need much more light. I would set up 3 or 4 580EXs on their own tripods, pointing straight up, bouncing off the ceiling, remotely triggered by another 580EX on-camera that also provides fill (to prevent raccoon eyes; so set it at 1/4 output power).

I hadn't thought of that. Would these flashes fire each time I took a picture? That might be a little bit distracting to the guests. Then again, hopefully they'd be having so much they wouldn't notice!

Of course you shoot RAW?

In the past I've shot in jpeg fine because my adobe photoshop 7 doesn't allow me to work in raw. If there's a plug-in I could buy or some freeware that allows me to mess with the RAW image I would be the happiest girl in the world. I've shot in RAW before but I always have to convert the image to a tiff to get my photoshop to open the file.

You can try to catch some of the ambient light by using a slow shutter speed of, say, 1/30th sec, if you use 400 or 800 ISO. I wouldn't go slower than 1/30th, when shooting animated people (with flash light).

I'll definetely give that a try. I haven't done much with the shutter speed.

Shoot test shots on location asap to find out how viable that is. Because if it is not, you can dispense with slow shutter speeds altogether, avoid their drawbacks, simply set X-sync speed, and concentrate on using the (bounced) flash light best.

I'm going to experiment on the friend who hired me sometime this week. I'll try to simulate the lighting as best I can and see what works and what doesn't work. Unfortunately I can't test at the actual site.

And if you use Take12's method, I would add that you should set and use a custom white balance, to accommodate the light reflecting off the walls that may not be white.

I've never done that before but I'm sure my good friend Mr. Google has a few tutorials I can read. Thank you, I've been working with the camera's preset white balances and I didn't even consider making a custom balance.

Thank you so much for you help!

[scottf2]

You can successfully bounce your flash in situations like this - you'll be amazed at how well those little flashes will light up a room with white ceilings. It will use a decent amount of flash power, so bring lots of batteries. If you shoot with your 50 1.8 at 800 ISO, you'll have plenty of flash power to get nicely lit shots at f/1.8-4.5ish... I shot a wedding with very similar conditions recently, and my assistant was shooting with her 40d/50 1.4 and bouncing her flash. A battery pack is ideal so you don't have to change batteries and you'll get faster recycle times, but if you don't want to buy anything new, you'll be OK as you are. If you DO use a battery pack, be careful of shooting too much/too fast - the 580ex II will turn itself off if it gets too hot. You can experiment with using your flash in manual mode if you want to get a bit more advanced, but ETTL will usually work OK.

And, needless to say, practice this technique beforehand in similar conditions if at all possible!

Check this out for more on using your flash this way...

[marivil]

You raised some good questions on this post. I would be interested in seeing the outcome.

[Take12]

Originally Posted by coabrown

Would these flashes fire each time I took a picture?

Of course.

That might be a little bit distracting to the guests. Then again, hopefully they'd be having so much they wouldn't notice!

That distraction will be a lot less if you bounce via the ceiling than if you flash straight into their faces.

In the past I've shot in jpeg fine because my adobe photoshop 7 doesn't allow me to work in raw. If there's a plug-in I could buy or some freeware that allows me to mess with the RAW image I would be the happiest girl in the world.

I hope another Camel can help you there, as I have CS3 (for OSX) that works with ACR (Adobe Camera Raw).

I've shot in RAW before but I always have to convert the image to a tiff to get my photoshop to open the file.

So does everybody, Courtney.

I'm going to experiment on the friend who hired me sometime this week. I'll try to simulate the lighting as best I can and see what works and what doesn't work. Unfortunately I can't test at the actual site.

Can't you go early on the day? Before the guests arrive? Because it's crucial to test it in as similar circumstances as possible. Preferably of course the exact same circumstances.

[The Viking]

Originally Posted by coabrown

In the past I've shot in jpeg fine because my adobe photoshop 7 doesn't allow me to work in raw. If there's a plug-in I could buy or some freeware that allows me to mess with the RAW image I would be the happiest girl in the world. I've shot in RAW before but I always have to convert the image to a tiff to get my photoshop to open the file.

Now, this is not the way to do it...
But, you could utilise the free 30 days trial of elements and use that to convert the RAW files.

However, there must be other programs that would do the trick.

And don't forget...

On the night, ENJOY yourself!!

[fredlef]

Canon has a utility pack that includes software for manipulation of RAW files. I don't generally use it myself but if you don't have it you might want to take a look - it's a free download from Canon.

Try this link:

EOS (SLR) Camera Systems - EOS Digital SLR Cameras - EOS 35mm SLR Cameras - Lenses - Flashes - EOS 20D - Canon USA Consumer Products

[fredlef]

After using the link enter your computer operating system and you should get the software download links for the 20D.