Photographing corporate event

I've been asked by my office manager to photograph an annual event our company holds. It's a sales banquet and a series of meetings. The banquet will be in a banquet room of a hotel... no windows and only some overhead fluorescent lighting. Supposedly they will provide a backdrop and they want portraits.

Will my 430EX be enough to cover this? I have a diffuser that fits right onto the flash head... should I use that to soften the light some?

The office meeting shots should be okay. I've done those before, but they're going to want the portraits to be good and I'm worried about that part.

Given my less-than-stellar lens lineup in my signature, would the 50mm f/1.8 be my best choice to use for this?

I wonder if anyone thinks I could sell my 50mm f/1.8, 18-55mm kit lens, and 75-300mm III to purchase a decent non-L prime?? Anyone? But then again, I unfortunately might have to break out the 18-55 for group shots as I have nothing wider.

Help!!

Your 430EX should hold up fine. Remember the flash head can tilt and swivel so it can accommodate almost any lighting needs. As for a lens of choice, your EF 28-135 IS should do the job of dealing with camera shake and don't be afraid to use your kit lens if you have to. Unless anyone is doing big group shots you should be fine. If not, save up some money but don't get rid of your 50mm, get rid of your kit lens and get an EF-S 10-22mm or Sigma 10-20mm.

Hope that helped and remember have fun!

With the event being held in a hotel banquet room, there will probably be high ceilings. I had a similar situation with a shoot I did at a banquet for the local chamber of commerce. I'm not sure if you'll get enough bounce flash to get good lighting. I used a Demb Flipit and that worked pretty good.

Also, if you're going to be doing portraits with the camera rotated into the portrait position, you may end up with bad shadows created from the flash. From what I've read a flash bracket will take care of this. I don't own a bracket, and I didn't have one for my shoot....needless to say, I had plenty of shadows.

TXLEBER wrote in post #2868251
With the event being held in a hotel banquet room, there will probably be high ceilings. I had a similar situation with a shoot I did at a banquet for the local chamber of commerce. I'm not sure if you'll get enough bounce flash to get good lighting. I used a Demb Flipit and that worked pretty good.

Also, if you're going to be doing portraits with the camera rotated into the portrait position, you may end up with bad shadows created from the flash. From what I've read a flash bracket will take care of this. I don't own a bracket, and I didn't have one for my shoot....needless to say, I had plenty of shadows.

I'm trying to remember... we have it in the same banquet room every year. The ceilings are high, but I can't recall how high. Perhaps one day this week I'll swing by that hotel and ask to peek at the banquet room just to see. I was worried about bounce flash from a high ceiling.

I believe I will try to purchase a bracket before this event. That'll give me a little peace of mind.

On the bright side, they've never hired anyone... they typically have one of our Corporate Officers take the photos. He has one of those "expensive point and shoots," like a Canon Powershot. But of course he wasn't using an external flash or anything, obviously.

Thanks, guys, for your help... you're both making me feel much better about this!

You won't get a "portrait" type result with on camera flash, but you can get good results... especially if the images won't be used for anything special... which it sounds like they won't. A couple of tips to consider, because I've gotten totally hosed by people "providing a backdrop" in the past. Most non-portrait photographers have NO IDEA what a backdrop is, and what can or can't be used. I've spent hours before trying to make a backdrop work that the customer provided. If they are doing this, I would go there ahead of time ... not on the same day... and test what THEY are providing. I would not agree to use what they are providing until I had seen it in person.

When you say "backdrop", are they talking about an actual backdop... like a painted muslin... or just a "background" that would work. You may find almost anything. If they are providing an actual photography backdrop, then they may be expecting studio type lighting which you'll have a tough time replicating with a single on camera flash. Or they may not.

If you are shooting against a backdrop... a wall... etc., then make sure you pull the subject out from it at least 5 feet or so. This will avoid your getting shadows on the backdrop which are hard to correct in processing and really take away from the image. Then you'll need to make sure you have enough light to expose the background properly, and let the ETTL take care of fill on the face of the subject. This will also introduce some difficult light since the temperature of the backdrop lighting and subject will be different. I'd try to do a custom white balance if you can, or you may get some odd results. One of the benefits of actual studio strobes is that you generally overpower the ambient light so your light is purely one temperture... on the subject and the backdrop.

If their idea of a "backdrop" is really a scene or something, then make sure it is lit the way it will be lit when you take the pictures... when you test. I got burned at a high school dance by this. They had this beautiful indoor scene with plants, a waterfall, bridge, etc. They wanted this to be in the background of their posed shots. I spend well over an hour trying to get this lit up as it was kind of dark. I had a lot of strobes pointed at different angles out onto the scene which went out pretty far behind the subject. I had it looking pretty good and then about 1 minute before showtime, someone flipped on additional lights that totally hosed up all my pre-planning and I immediately had a line of folks ready to get their picture taken. I was so annoyed.

So just remember that they may actually recommend to you, or give you something, that is impossible to use well.

Best thing to do is to go to the room and try out your gear first. If I had to shoot something like this, I would definitely take the kit lens, but if you could, see if your boss would spring for renting a better lens. The 16-35 may be much better and or even the 17-40 with flash. Go, play with the lighting. I don't like surprises.