Shooting (and lighting, of course!) dancers

[KFB]

There's a monthly belly dance night at a chocolate/coffee shop nearby, that I- of course- can't resist going to and photographing. The problem? The lighting in there is terrrrible. I tried shooting with the available light last month, but the brightest lighting was 1. not all that bright, and 2. behind the dancers.

I shot at f/1.8, 1/80, ISO 800- which I'd like to be able to reduce to 400 (my Rebel XTi is generous with the noise at 800, it appears).

Obviously, I want to bring in some light. No flash, both because it's distracting and because I can't afford the time for it to re-power up. I have little-to-no-money and a cheap work light I'm hoping will suffice, somehow, with your help.

Based on the following set up, what would you do?



Behind the room divider is where the dancers hang out prior to, er, dancing, and I could in theory stick my light behind it and use it as a giant softbox, but if I can still get good results without doing so I'd prefer to stay out of their way as much as I can.

This is probably the best shot I managed to take, which I (probably obviously) blurred & darkened the bg to reduce noise and make the foreground appear bright, upped brightness & contrast, etc. If the lighting conditions were better I think this could have been a great shot.

[RexK_Cozumel]

honestly a cheap work light is not going to do very much at all. If you can not/will not use flash then see if you can bring in some of those double light rigs that are on a light stand 500 watts each light. two rigs should be enough.

[acedrew]

I had a similar issue recently, a band I was shooting had tons of lighting effects, but no flood cans for ambient. I used a $9.95 500W halogen floodlamp from Harbor Freight. I'll get into the setup in a moment Here are the results:

Click the image to see others shot that night.
The other trick I did was put color gels on my speedlite. This makes the light from your flash look like it's part of the ambience.
For the shoplight setup, I cable tied the single 500W light to the ceiling just a little in front of the stage, and I used an orange gel over it. (I used orange because all I wanted was something to make it seem like NOT worklamp light, and orange lets me use most of the light generated by the halogen lamp.) Here is your diagram with where I had my light setup:

This worked rather well, esp when I shot with my speedlite turned way down with a blue gel, the light mixed from the different angles for a GREAT effect! Also if you're shooting with the speedlite at 1/64 or 1/32, you don't have to worry about recycle time, or if using your onboard flash, turn the flash compensation down to it's furthest negative setting.

Let me know how this goes!
Andrew Rodgers
Perfected Perspectives -- Photography by Andrew Rodgers

[KFB]

This is perfect- thank you so much for taking the time out to respond!

[WPCatfish]

That's a great shot you captured!

[acedrew]

Thanks! I had shot the venue before, and got a few shots but primarily failed, I was prepared this time!

Andrew Rodgers
Perfected Perspectives -- Photography by Andrew Rodgers | Andrew Rodgers (acedrew) on Twitter | http://fb.perfectedperspectives.com