Lighting the reception hall for a wedding

I will be shooting a wedding in a few weeks and one of the things I thought would be a good idea is to wirelessly fire some strobes as I take flash photos at the reception. These strobes would be positioned in unobtrusive locations in the hall just to give a bit more light in the backgrounds. So I would like to know if this is something I should do, and if so, what I will need to do it. I know I can adjust my camera's settings to make the ambient exposure brighter, but I want to be prepared in case that doesn't work out. Anyway, is this a recommended thing to do? I did see it done at a wedding I attended and it seemed like a good idea. Right now i own a Canon 420ex, 3 strobes/umbrellas, cheap e-bay transmitter/receivers. Is this too much to deal with considering the short time I have until the wedding?

Yes, I would recommend using strobes for the reception. Two should be more than enough, you don't need the umbrellas.

Check out POTN user Nicksan's blog post about his reception lighting setup, it's pretty solid:
http://www.nicknphoto.​com/wedding-reception-lighting/

Thanks for the link. Do you think that the cheap cactus trigger/recievers will work or should I get more professional equipment. Do those cyber commanders only work with the Alien Bees equipment? I have Genesis strobes from Calumet.

Stefan

The cybercommanders only work with alien bee products. Ideally you can put the strobes up high on a stand in the corners and bounce them off the ceiling so that you bounce light across the room to provide you with background light. Use your ETTL flash on the camera to provide the front lighting to your subject. You will need a triggering method that will let you use the PC sync port on the side of your camera to trigger the remote lights.

Cool - so I just need to figure out what type of triggers I need.

So if I am using my on camera flash and the strobes, won't I get some extreme overexposure on subjects who are also in the strobe lighting area?

Stefan

Not if you keep the power on the strobes low enough that at your preferred settings (without the on camera flash firing) you get a slight underexposure, then let the on camera flash do the rest. Also avoid shooting with the light visible in the background.

gonzogolf wrote in post #14572995
The cybercommanders only work with alien bee products. Ideally you can put the strobes up high on a stand in the corners and bounce them off the ceiling so that you bounce light across the room to provide you with background light. Use your ETTL flash on the camera to provide the front lighting to your subject. You will need a triggering method that will let you use the PC sync port on the side of your camera to trigger the remote lights.

This is not really accurate. I use a CyberCommander on my camera and the CyberSync receiver with my 580 EXii off camera. If you want to use the full functionality of the CyberCommander to control flash power, you need a PCB strobe. However, they will trigger other products using the jack on the side of the receiver versus the rj-11 type jack.

Kaljam wrote in post #14573737
This is not really accurate. I use a CyberCommander on my camera and the CyberSync receiver with my 580 EXii off camera. If you want to use the full functionality of the CyberCommander to control flash power, you need a PCB strobe. However, they will trigger other products using the jack on the side of the receiver versus the rj-11 type jack.

Sure, it will trigger a non buff strobe, but if you want full functions (sort of the point of having one) you need buff lights.