Indoor Wedding Reception... Awful Lighting!

[travelinswede]

I was recently booked to photograph my third wedding (yay!)
I toured the reception hall and it is really bad- like, early 70's style with a picket fence around the dance floor and the most horrific lighting you've ever seen.

I need lighting tips! External flash? Umbrellas set in the corner of the room (hey, I've seen it done before... never actually saw the results though...). What are your thoughts??

[zona5101]

external flash without a doubt. probably using a bounce deflector such as a lumiquest or similar...

[111t]

I like to put a powerful monolight on a stand in the corner and then sync it to my camera which is also sporting a speedlight on a bracket. The monolight brightens up the room and the speedlight fills in the subject. you have to be careful not to take shots where the monolight is in the background because it will make a spectacular spectacle of itself. (unless it's the effect your going for in which case go for it)

I'm guessing since this is your third wedding i'm guessing you don't have anything like this (i could certainly be wrong) I've had good reults with my photogenic pl2500dr powerlight. it's something to think about anyway. It works when the room is just dark. When there are lighting effects in the decor of the room it'll blow them away, so you might not want to use it in that situation. The higher end pro cameras combined with fast glass can yield better high iso images in these situations.

[natek313]

Originally Posted by 111t

I like to put a powerful monolight on a stand in the corner and then sync it to my camera which is also sporting a speedlight on a bracket. The monolight brightens up the room and the speedlight fills in the subject. you have to be careful not to take shots where the monolight is in the background because it will make a spectacular spectacle of itself. (unless it's the effect your going for in which case go for it)

This is probably your best bet, travelinswede. I've been assisting a wedding photographer for a couple weddings thus far, and, believe it or not, he uses a three light setup for wedding receptions. A monolight (no umbrella) is setup aimed at the ceiling to illuminate the venue a bit. He also uses an off-camera light with a small softbox as his main light for subjects. And, for a fill light, he uses a flash on a bracket.

It's a lot to work with, but the results are nice.

[dixyphoto]

I've done many indoor weddings and the most important thing is the ISO setting. shoot around 1600 or more if you can this will bring in all the natural light around the subject, lamps etc. use your camera attached flash with diffuser, its fine. I used to take light but waste of time, you only need them with low ISO because they are more powerful. Good luck!

derbyshire wedding photographers, based in belper

[Dajuan]

Hmm, since the venue is an eye sore, why not shoot with a really wide aperture and lose the background. That would solve two problems at once (bad / lacking light & unpleasing venue). This may not eliminate the need for external lighting, but it likely would help.

[shahkedar]

I personally think that the need to get some additional mono blocks is very much justified. High ISO can be used but you get too much grain in the photos (depending on the camera ofcourse). Unless you have a 21MP camera, you might need to remove the noice from all individual photos.

I am in process of procuring two mono blocks 500w each. My intention is to and I think along with my on-camera flash and a wireless trigger system, I should be pretty good for my next indoor wedding reception.

-Kedar.
Family and Wedding Portrait Photographer based in Sydney