How to light a room with dark walls and high dark ceilings

My daughter's birthday is coming up and my wife has chosen a venue where one of the rooms has dark wood walls and dark wood ceilings. The other smaller room has a white ceiling so I can easily mount a 600EX in two corners (on ledges) and bounce off the ceiling.

For the big room, I've got a few ideas but was hoping to get some feedback from those with experience with shooting in rooms with few to no options for bounce. There is one corner where I can mount a light stand and mount 1 or 2 600EX high and pointed into the room. There are also a few chandeliers in which I can probably mount some 600EXs using some super clamps. I don't know if shooting straight down without any diffuser will be a good idea, however.

I am going to try suggest the cake cutting and princesses (actors) activity occurs in the white-ceiling room. All the guests, food and seating, however, will be in the larger room (where I will mostly be taking candid photos). I would like to keep the ISO to 400 and below if possible.

I will try to find some photos of the rooms, but essentially, I will be dealing with a 10x20 foot room with a white ceiling and a larger 25x30 foot room with the dark walls and ceilings.

I currently have 5 600EXs, one ST-E3-RT but am not adverse to buying more flashes if it will make my life easier. I also have an Einstein, but I am not eager to have use something big and have to plug something in to the wall.

You would get more replies in the wedding and events section

I would try setting flashes in the four corners of the room (to avoid reflections from a flash pointed directly at a flat wall) and have one on the camera for fill.

I think I would still bounce off the ceiling in that room. It might be a bit warmer from the wood tones but shouldnt be hard to process in post.

what do you do when you can’t bounce your flash?

bouncing on-camera flash off a bricks wall

finding something to bounce your flash off …

What if you need more light from your bounce flash?

Extreme bounce flash photography

This image has nearly 100% of the ambient coming from flash. The ceiling was 10 ft high and flat black. The ambient is about 3.5 stops under.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …56709879@N07/11​328081676/

JakAHearts wrote in post #16519323
This image has nearly 100% of the ambient coming from flash. The ceiling was 10 ft high and flat black. The ambient is about 3.5 stops under.

we really need a medal/award smiley, cause this deserves one.

great image, too.

that ceiling isn't too bad. you can fix it in post. if it's during the day it looks like there's enough ambient if you don't limit yourself to 400 iso. why 400? you can shoot at 1600 and still print large without much noticeable noise unless you're a measurebater

hes gone wrote in post #16519792
=he's gone;16519792]we really need a medal/award smiley, cause this deserves one.

great image, too.

Thanks man. I appreciate that.

And for ultra fun bonus points, who can explain why nearly all the "subjects" in the frame are of equal exposure even though they are at various distances from my lens?

JakAHearts wrote in post #16522406
And for ultra fun bonus points, who can explain why nearly all the "subjects" in the frame are of equal exposure even though they are at various distances from my lens?

Because you bounced the flash

As for the room in question. I'd but lights in opposite corners either bounced back into wall ceiling corner or aimed into room, since your using 600EX-RTs you should be able to set them in one group and an on camera fill in another group.

Why 400 ISO, you have a 5DII, that will easily deliver files that will look good at 3200. Even if you end up with something you want to print 16x20.

JakAHearts wrote in post #16522406
And for ultra fun bonus points, who can explain why nearly all the "subjects" in the frame are of equal exposure even though they are at various distances from my lens?

The farther the light source, the longer the fall off. so the more even the lighting over a set distance.

Bouncing produces more even light when the bounce distance is far.

great photo!

DBNissan wrote in post #16518448
I would try setting flashes in the four corners of the room (to avoid reflections from a flash pointed directly at a flat wall) and have one on the camera for fill.

Weird...I didn't get my instant thread notifications.
Thank you for the feedback. Are you thinking light stands for the corners? And are you thinking of pointing directly into the room from each corner? One of the challenges is the room is not square so some corners won't point to some parts of the room.

JakAHearts wrote in post #16519197
I think I would still bounce off the ceiling in that room. It might be a bit warmer from the wood tones but shouldnt be hard to process in post.

I wasn't sure if bouncing off the ceiling would work because of the wood coffers. Wouldn't those "trap" the light between the coffers?

jrafael wrote in post #16519305
what do you do when you can’t bounce your flash?

bouncing on-camera flash off a bricks wall

finding something to bounce your flash off …

What if you need more light from your bounce flash?

Extreme bounce flash photography

Thank you!

JakAHearts wrote in post #16519323
This image has nearly 100% of the ambient coming from flash. The ceiling was 10 ft high and flat black. The ambient is about 3.5 stops under.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …56709879@N07/11​328081676/
1393523_76346915034577​3_1084981926_n by shanereighard, on Flickr

That's a really awesome image. How did you have the lights in the ceiling? Pointed straight down or did you use some modifier?

bespoke wrote in post #16519845
that ceiling isn't too bad. you can fix it in post. if it's during the day it looks like there's enough ambient if you don't limit yourself to 400 iso. why 400? you can shoot at 1600 and still print large without much noticeable noise unless you're a measurebater

Sadly, I'm a bit of a pixel-peeper/measurebater. I don't like the noise on dark parts of the photo on the 5D MII. I might go to 800 but I start to get a bit annoyed with the noise and resulting loss of detail.

dmward wrote in post #16522512
Because you bounced the flash

As for the room in question. I'd but lights in opposite corners either bounced back into wall ceiling corner or aimed into room, since your using 600EX-RTs you should be able to set them in one group and an on camera fill in another group.

Why 400 ISO, you have a 5DII, that will easily deliver files that will look good at 3200. Even if you end up with something you want to print 16x20.

Sounds like everyone is leaning towards corner placement rather than off the light fixtures. Will I get much bounced light if I bounce into the corner off of dark wood?

SunTsu wrote in post #16526927
Sounds like everyone is leaning towards corner placement rather than off the light fixtures. Will I get much bounced light if I bounce into the corner off of dark wood?

I've used clamps and setup small 2'x2' white foam boards on the wall and aimed the flash toward it to bound.

honestly I just setup my 64" PLM's and shoot through for good even light.

SunTsu wrote in post #16526927
Sadly, I'm a bit of a pixel-peeper/measurebater. I don't like the noise on dark parts of the photo on the 5D MII. I might go to 800 but I start to get a bit annoyed with the noise and resulting loss of detail.

Just get over this feeling, I used to feel the same way. Unless you plan on blowing these images up for very big prints, noise with a mk2 isn't really an issue until MUCH higher in the ISO range. Lightroom can do amazing things with noise reduction, as well.

This is a dark-ish room, your settings should reflect that rather than constricting yourself with some arbitrary ISO limit.