Shooting In A Black Hole

I shot a graduation this afternoon that was in a black hole. Wow. It was in a fair sized auditorium at Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The ceiling was flat black, the upper walls were flat black, one section of bleacher walls were off white, the lower area/walls were covered in flat black drapes and the end where the event was held had a huge flat black drape as the background. Oh ya, the seats were dark green too. So green that you could only tell they were green because the trim was all black! The floor was covered with gray carpet too. The students were in dark maroon gowns with matching caps and the staff was dressed in black robes...

Needless to say I'm sure most of my shots won't be worth processing. I was shooting wide open at 2.8 ISO 1600 or higher most of the time. It was truly a black hole. All I could think about the whole time was the Strobist setup up using a few flash units mounted to the railings at a couple of key locations. But it was a mad house and it just wasn't possible.

Jon.

Hate it when that happens. I saw a cool video zak arias did, once, where he taped strobes to various parts of the gym with gaffers tape. I have always wanted to try that.

Sounds like the decor was designed by an Eastern Michigan grad...

(Why yes, I did go to a rival college!)

Here's one of the first shots... Yikes! I'm not a happy camper.

Hmmm... the love child of Jabba the Hut and Dick Cheney, handing out diplomas. Who'da thunkit?

I guess I'm curious as to what you were either going for or hoping for, with the lighting scenario. Was there a specific 'look' you were aiming for, or just a general capture of the proceedings?

how was the lighting? should be a fair amount of overhead lights

We kept thinking they would turn the real lights on any minute. Right up until the end.

It was seriously bad. I honestly couldn't see unless I was looking through the lens because the lighting was so dim. Everything was kind of fuzzy. The seating areas were totally dark. I should have taken a picture of the lighting but I didn't. Sorry.

Look at the pupils in the eyes of both kids in this shot. They are huge.

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When it is dark like this I shoot M mode to get the shutter speeds I want and add light in post (shooting RAW helps a lot). This will cause a lot of noise in large images but it will keep the blur down.
I imagine this was a tough shoot.

Maybe it's because the files have been reduced, but they don't look too bad other than being a little soft.

That's kind of where I am with it, and why I was asking what the OP was hoping for or gunning for. Granted, there is a certain pallor over the images that only crappy lighting of that temperature can produce, and take out some of the depth of the pic, but overall--if it were me--I'd be rather happy I got pics of this quality in such a poorly lit situation.

Sorry for the slow reply Dave. I was just trying to capture the proceedings for 6 of the grads. We traveled across town in really bad traffic, I was packing light so I could move around the crowd and I thought "how bad can the lighting be in this place?" Wow. Was I ever unprepared!

Did I get some shots that are better than nothing? Maybe a few of each kid but nothing to be real proud of.

Jon.

I don't think they look too bad at this size.....depending on your camera and noise software you may be surprised at what you can get out of them.

I shot in a black hole once, although it was girls on motorcycles in a very dark bar. It can be quite the challenge. Luckily I had some strobes that could peel paint. I was using 4800Ws to get the apertures I wanted. It is amazing how much light can be soaked up by black surroundings in a big space. I think you did pretty good under the circumstances.

It's my opinion that your best bet, at this point, is do some color tomfoolery in Photoshop or LIghtroom--bring some life back to the skin tones, for example--and simply inform the parents of the conditions you were forced to shoot under; don't get too technical, but make it layman enough that they see you were in between a rock and a hard place.