A good friend asked me to help out for his daughter's wedding by taking some photos in a second shooter capacity (although I'm not sure the primary photographer was any better prepared than me :)). It was my first experience doing this and overall it went ok (well enough that I want to do it again), but I found the ceremony venue really challenging. It was a large, warehouse type space, with black ceilings about 30 ft high, dark flooring and yellowish walls. The stage area was lit with tungsten lights from above, as well as LED fairy lights for atmosphere, and the rest of the space was lit with fluorescent bulbs. I had 3 yongnuo yn600ex-rt speedlights and a yne3-rt transmitter, a couple of umbrellas and a reflector to work with. I have two questions
1. what could I have done with what i had to make the lighting work in this space?
2. If i had known ahead of time the limitations of the space, what should i have purchased/rented to overcome the problems, and how should it have been set up?
thanks in advance.
Cheers,
Tris
Tris,
Sadly, the 600ex-rt speedlights, like all speedlights for Canon or Nikon, are too underpowered to be effective in that environment. Your best bet in the future is to have a "light person" holding your second light on a stick and following you around. That person lights from a 45-degree angle to add more light to your subject, and their light also falls onto the background. The second light should be the same distance from your subject as the camera, for a nice 2:1 lighting ratio.
Don't use umbrellas with the 600ex-rt speedlights. Like the Canon or Nikon speedlights, they are too underpowered to actually have any effect beyond 3/4 length portraits. Best bet is to shoot straight flash. Plus, even umbrellas become point-source lights when far from the subject. You need the power of direct flash to light the room.
For future, either use the Quantum Q-Flash or Godox lights, which work very well in TTL mode. And add some monolights on radio slaves to light the room. I suggest bare-bulb for the monolights for a better spread of light, and a smaller light source when trying to avoid shooting into it.