Help - 3yr old tea party birthday part

[erincarter]

My daughter is turning 3 on Saturday and we are having a "Princess Tea Party" birthday party for her. Her and 3 of her friends will be dressed up as princesses and will be having a tea party complete with tea set and cupcakes.

I'm shooting with a D60 and I have a 18-55mm and 55-200mm kit lenses as well as a 35mm f/1.8 lens.

What I'm hoping is that someone(s) might be able to help with how I should set up my off camera flash to get the best pictures possible.
I have an sb600 that I haven't used much and am not all that familiar with yet. I have it set up on a light stand off camera using Cactus Wireless Flash Triggers and yesterday I picked up a 45" convertable black and white umbrella for it as well.
I don't have much practice using the set up yet (I've just started to read the Strobist site).

The 4 princesses will be seated around a table in the middle of the living room having tea and cupcakes and I'd like to try and get some really nice photo's of them.
I've attached a rough drawing of what the living room looks like...notice the big window..it faces east...
Can anyone give me some tips on where the best place to put the flash would be, what camera settings to use and where I should be standing to take the pictures? And any other advice, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I'd like to try and get it figured out before the weekend so I don't have to mess around too much with things during the party.

[sybren]

This looks like a thing we should be able to tackle I would go for a cross-lighting setup. The window provides light from one direction, so place your flash + umbrella at the other side of the children. I think a symmetrical setup would be best, so place your flash as far away and as high up as the window.

To get your settings right, test the setup with your hand or perhaps your daughter doesn't mind sitting for you. With these steps you should get it right pretty fast:

• Set your camera exposure to M (manual)
• Determine a proper exposure without the flash, just the light from the window.
• If you have any choice, go for a short shutter speed, preferrably as close to your sync speed as possible. However, do pay attention to your aperture - you'll want all children to be in focus.
• Now turn on your flash, set it to manual, and experiment to get its exposure right.
• When you got the exposure right, check the power level of your flash. I wouldn't pop it at full power, and maybe not even at half power. You can open up your aperture to be able to lower your flash. Raising your ISO works as well. Compensate with your shutter speed so that the sunlight is still exposing properly.

That should do the trick I think. If you run into trouble, don't hesitate to ask!

[erincarter]

Thanks for the reply...I really appreciate it.

I'm going to hopefully attempt a trial run tomorrow afternoon.
Thanks again!