How should I have filled the light in this room?

mrcoons

I put 110 high school students in this auditorium in black uniforms for a group photo, I was shooting from a stage. This room is lit by florescent lighting that I estimate to be somewhere between 5000-5400 in temperature. But as you can see the first couple of rows are darker than the others. I centered the band using the aisle as my center point and had them stand. I used a shoulder to shoulder staggered row formation placing the shorter members in the first row and working back from there.

My plan was going to be to set 2 flash units with umbrellas on stands on each side of the band (on the stage) and fire them with the ST-E2.

But the room was large enough that I could not get the ST-E2 to fire both flash units (or I did not experiment long enough to find the correct angles but I ran out of time.) So I went with just an on camera 580 and used a custom white balance.

So this experience has led me to strongly consider switching to Pocket Wizards for my flashes but I keep wondering if I should be using something like the Calumet Genesis 200 instead of my Speedlites. :scratch

Does anyone have an opinion?

Thanks.

cmason

hmm, I have successfully used my ST-E2 outdoors, with at least 20ft btw flashes. I do make sure to aim the sensors of the flashes toward the camera, moving the flash head to the subject of course. I also make sure the camera is behind the flash units, rather that directly in-line. This may be part of my success, not sure. I do know that I have been very successful using the ST-E2 in all situations, and indoors, it works without all the pesky aiming, as I suspect the light bounces around the room.

Not sure why yours didnt work. You may want to experiement with it, before you go drop to serious $$$$$ on PWs.

ziggy53

I use some inexpensive 16 channel radio slaves from E-Bay and they have worked fine in churches, homes and even an old quarry.

Besides possible color balance problems, the ambient lights you have to work with are probably almost directly overhead the subjects, probably not very flattering.

I suggest either overpowering the ambient lights or turning them off completely and using light sources you control that are appropriate from both a white balance and directional perspective.

For a large group I do recommend studio monolights. I am not sure if the Calumet lights you link to are powerful enough to do what you want to do.

I use the FlashPoint II 1820 monolights and I'm not sure that 2 of them would cover a group of 110, but they might.

I do suggest getting the camera up higher, either a step-ladder or a "lift", if the facility has one. The lights need to be even higher than the camera, just not directly overhead the subjects. Light bounced into the ceiling might be possible.

mrcoons

ziggy53 wrote:

I use some inexpensive 16 channel radio slaves from E-Bay and they have worked fine in churches, homes and even an old quarry.

Besides possible color balance problems, the ambient lights you have to work with are probably almost directly overhead the subjects, probably not very flattering.

I suggest either overpowering the ambient lights or turning them off completely and using light sources you control that are appropriate from both a white balance and directional perspective.

For a large group I do recommend studio monolights. I am not sure if the Calumet lights you link to are powerful enough to do what you want to do.

I use the FlashPoint II 1820 monolights and I'm not sure that 2 of them would cover a group of 110, but they might.

I do suggest getting the camera up higher, either a step-ladder or a "lift", if the facility has one. The lights need to be even higher than the camera, just not directly overhead the subjects. Light bounced into the ceiling might be possible.

Thanks Ziggy. The photo above was at stage level but the actual photo was off a ladder on stage. I could have turned down the house light some but turning them off with 110 high school students probably would not be wise!

I will look into studio monolights (1800 watts or more) and see if I can come up with something in my budget. Thanks for the suggestion.

pathfinder

I think this room is too large to expect ST-E2s to work reliably without fussing with them. I think they can be made to work if you point the ST-E2 precisely at the sensor on the flash units and trigger the rest with a slave in manual mode, but you will have to align everything carefully

I think this room will do much better with Pocket Wizards or a similar radio device from ALien Bee, or Calumet, or Elichrome.

Even better, a Hong Kong special Cactus V2 radio remote to a nearby flash and the remaining 4-6 flashes via optical slaves with the camera in full manual mode.

This is a large room, and I think several smaller strobes MAY work better than one or two more powerful ones. I might even try bouncing a few flashes off a large Impact reflector on one side.