Rooftop Party

Hi all,
Looking for a little advice. I'm shooting a rooftop party being held on the top floor of a parking garage. There will be no ceiling or walls to bounce flash off of and it is at night. The only lighting will be the overhead lights from the garage. Again no roof...they are like street lights high above on poles. Im armed with my 50D, 15-85mm IS, and a 580exII. I will be walking around as there will be many vendor booths , and also taking pics of various people, supporters etc. I wont be able to set up OCF so im pretty much limited to hotshoe. Any sugestions? Im thinking just straight on and balance ambient with FEC. DYI foamy thingy? Its this Saturday night. I do have the Lumiquest soft box ltp that is about 13x9 inches. Off to the side on a bracket? If this is the route I have the wireless triger and Im thinking I could just go manual since the lighting will be prety much the same after sun sets. Im open to any ideas
Thanks

Can you have an assistant with a fish pole? You could use a small soft box and trigger wirelessly.

Bryson wrote in post #13412829
Can you have an assistant with a fish pole? You could use a small soft box and trigger wirelessly.

I've also used an assistant with a piece of thick wallboard... the name eludes me right now... but, makes a good bounce wall.

There's really no reason why you couldn't just use your pop up card on the 580 EXII. No one is going to be expecting studio quality lighting from an outdoor party. As long as you adjust your exposure for enough background ambient to show you should be fine. The following shot was done with this technique.

^ soooooo much wasted light with just the bounce card out it's ridiculous.

to the OP, go with off camera flash with an ettl cord. handle it from there.

Thanks for the tips!

StanNJ1 wrote in post #13412932
There's really no reason why you couldn't just use your pop up card on the 580 EXII.

There's a very good reason. It wastes most of your light and doesn't accomplish anything, other than moving the light source a few more inches away from the lens. For heaven's sake, outdoors you'd be better off with Fary Gong tupperware (not that I would recommend that).

In this situation the best you can do is increase the size of your light somewhat. The various small softboxes from Lumiquest would work well. In this situation you'll need your AF Assist light so I would recommend this one:
http://www.lumiquest.c​om …ts/LumiQuest-SoftBox.html

I use the foamy thing. There are two I use, one that lets me control light that pushes forward and bounces off a ceiling by attaching it at different angles. Its an inverted trapezoid velcroed to the flash head - this one is primarily for indoors.

The outdoor version I made is much bigger (increasing light source) and "pushes" more light forward than letting it bounce off a ceiling/wall, etc. Works well enough for me, and was cheap to make, collapsible for travel and storage and cheap and easy to replace.

Best of luck. Cell phone pic attached.

http://i444.photobucke​t.com …g999/2011-11-18235053.jpg

javig999, please downsize your image according to the image posting rules:
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=51022

LOL Thats a huge picture.... I second the OFC set up.