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Available light shooting : 200 people


JHAG

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A piece of advice needed here.

I have an assignment to shoot an exhibition/award ceremony.

I'll mainly use the M8 and Digilux 2, plus Nikon D300 with a long

lens for non intrusive close shots.

I intend to shoot almost everything without flash (apart the pop-up

of the D2 which I will use discreetly).

The venue is a large room (30 m x 15 m), totally white, and large windows

giving generous light (+ large fluo lamps from the low ceiling).

The time will be daytime.

Light should be sufficient, even for moving subjects. The only thing is there will be 200

persons to shoot (groups moving, etc.) mostly with my 28 and/or 21/2.8.

I thought about just one device : a medium size reflector to take advantage

of this white floor and bounce some light to my group subjects.

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My advice would be to keep it simple. A reflector might help throw some nice light into the right places, but carrying it around and placing it for your shots might be more of a hinderance. The white floors should be sufficient to bounce light for you. Whenever I shoot in situations like you have described, I prefer to keep equipment to a minimum so it doesn't get in my way.

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Dear Brent,

 

You're right of course, but this will be a full day of shooting. I fear declining light and ceiling fluos at around 5 p.m. indoor leave me with more unpleasant skin tones and noisy shadows. Anyway, I'll have some time the day before to do a test ride.

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The difficult aspect of this shoot might be the variability of the light. You have ambient mixed with FL to start with. Then due to the time of day you may have periods of exceptional contrast. While this can be used to create some nice images, it can get in the way of nice clean coverage of the event.

 

Your best bet is to have some reasonable flash with you..so that you can control the light as needed. The Gary Fong example is good. He also has a neat small diffuser called the Puffer that fits in the hot shoe of a D300. I found it outstanding for fill. You may have to balance ambient and fill while using ISO to keep the shutter speed at the highest synch.

 

Its much harder to use the M8 in the type of situation you described ...it can be effective if you catch the light right or it can seem impossible . If the light is soft as in an overcast day....the M8 could be perfect.

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Testing in advance is the key. You can try all combinations of existing and flash lighting and even select positions from which you want to shoot, like a high vantage point. I'll bet that you will need the flash for all of the shots and the only question is now to make it soft in close quarters.

 

I had a similar assignment recently to cover a reunion where my job was to recreate the class picture but in a banquet hall. Having a few hours to set up and test lighting paid off as the subjects didn't want to pose for very long.

 

I used two umbrella reflectors on stands as the room was too dark for a flash bounce. Without testing I would have had a problem.

 

Have fun and enjoy being the official photographer.

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Of course, testing, always.

Roger, you're right about variable light, but I intend to use it as an asset to have varied shots.

I don't want to use flash all over the place, mainly because I'll shoot from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.,

with reasonable light until 2 or 3.

I first thought of taking with me my Profoto umbrellas plus wizard to create a kind of studio space

area for group portraits, and shoot the rest of it among the crowd with the M8.

Now I'm not sure and rather keep it simple. No big light, just filling.

There is plenty of soft light (both daylight from large windows and ceiling fluo,

plus the walls, ceiling and floor totally white). Gary Fong solution seems very good.

Anyway, I'll have a whole morning of test ride.

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I had exactly this kind of situation= shoot a 6oth anniversary dinner function; I took D2, and an R8; in actual fact, I stopped using the R 8, because it became a hindrance, and shot the whole thing on the digilux 2, which performed magnificently throughout. Same sort of lighting, but background was a sort of pale cream, which tended to take on what ever colour cast was predominant. Printed the whole thing in a large presentation book, and it was a success. Glad I didn't rely on the R8 though !

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Gary Fong is out of stock on his universal pro unit.

 

Geez, what's web commerce coming to?

 

I'll report when they get around to sending my unit.

 

William,

Check the [resellers] link left side of their page.

The LSU Clear is available. The LSU Cloud is OOS.

Among others this website sells it, even if somewhat expansive :

https://www.photoproshop.com/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=garyfong&search_in_description=1&x=0&y=0

 

You might also like this :

iTunes Store

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Gary Fong is out of stock on his universal pro unit.

 

Geez, what's web commerce coming to?

 

I'll report when they get around to sending my unit.

 

Bill

 

I got my GF thru Amazon. Not sure I was clear on recommendations .. The universal GF works great but isn t small (you did say you wanted soft light right..so you need big) . What saved my bacon was the small GF Puffer...fits in the hot shoe of a D700 D300 and allows the on camera flash to work. This is purely a fill flash solution but it also tends to even out the color temp in mixed lighting.

 

I used a D700 with the zeiss 28/2 probably at 800 ISO to give the flash a chance and give me 5.6 for DOF . The Puffer is little and comes apart for storage. Wish I had something like it for the M8/M9.

 

The issues I was trying to address are common for event photographers( my daughter does this) .....you can have plenty of light but its too harsh and creates nasty shadows . If you move indoors you can get mixed light with one side FL and the other ambient. So the objective is to fill the shadows and even out the color temp .

 

You can do this well with the larger SF58 and any of many good light modifiers ..but I haven t found a small flash solution for the m8/m9..the SF24 even with the Sfill modifier isn t much fun to work with.

 

Now if you get a cloudy bright day and maybe can shoot for black and white.....then the fill flash isn t as important. I am just working from the premise that if you don t light the light you have to create your own.

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Gary Fong is out of stock on his universal pro unit.

 

Geez, what's web commerce coming to?

 

I'll report when they get around to sending my unit.

 

Hey, I got an email from GF, inc. today and they've shipped my univ-pro kit.

 

I'll report when I play with it.

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