Advice needed for a shoot in 2 days!

I have a photo shoot this Saturday, and I need some lighting advice. First of all, I have NO lights, other than the build in flash on my cameras. The shoot is going to be in a friend of the families living room. The whole family is going to be there so I'm guessing it will be 8 adults, and 5 or more kids. It's a new house, and I have never been in it, so I don't know what the lighting is like and I don't know if I will be able to check it out before Saturday. The shoot was originally going to be at 11:00a.m. so I figured I would have enuf daylight coming thru the windows to help out. Now it has moved to 7:00p.m. and it's dark out by 5:00. :s. I don't have the time or $ to order a decent flash, or a light kit, and I hate to shoot anything above ISO 200 with my DRebel because I can't stand the noise. I do have some Portra 400 film which would give me an extra stop, but I would rather stick to digital if at all possible.

I have thought about getting some halogen shop lights, but not sure how well they would work. Any suggestions?

I just got off the phone with the woman who owns the house, and she assured me that the room will have plenty of light. I guess I'll just wing it. :) Feel free to add any suggestions or any advice you may have tho.

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Originally Posted by mjs1973

I just got off the phone with the woman who owns the house, and she assured me that the room will have plenty of light...

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Michael, I would not trust anyone telling me that any farther than I could throw them. The human eye is a relatively poor judge of illumination, and one person's idea of "plenty of light" in reality may hardly cause a flicker on your light meter. :(

I think your original idea of hot work lights is the way to go, even if it's just as a backup...

A couple of 1Ks on stands should be pretty cheap at a home improvement store. Don't aim them directly at your subjects. If you don't have umbrellas or light panels, bounce them off the ceiling or side walls, or maybe one of each.

It should give you with a wide, fairly soft even light over the room and the group. If you shoot digital, the WB should not be a big deal. You can even make color corrections in photoshop.

I had these same exact thoughts after I got off the phone with her last night Steve. So I stopped and picked up a set of halogen work lights just to be safe. I have been wanting a set for the garage anyway. :)

Thanks for posting!

I was out of town, not like I'm really the expert here...;)

How did it go? Sounds like the big halogen lights pointed at white walls or ceiling would work pretty well. I've heard of people doing stuff like this but never tried it myself.

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Originally Posted by another view

How did it go?

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Um, well... it went OK. The lighting was horible, and with the noise levels of my camera at higher ISO's I wanted to keep it as low as possible. The husband had he exact same lights that I bought, so we used his and it made a huge differance. Looking back, I should have used them both sets of lights... Lighting and portrature is something I need a lot of work with.

I left my camera on ISO 100 and I should have bumped it up to 200. The lights left an orange cast over the image, but that was an easy white balance fix. All in all, the photos are just OK IMO. Not my best work, but not my worst either.

I burned the photos to a CD and told them they can order whatever they wanted from whoever they wanted. I haven't heard how they liked them yet, but I will let you know what they think.

Did you shoot it RAW? You could use an "incandescent" preset for WB to get it close, then fine-tune it later in PS. I agree about that it probably would have been best to use all of the lights (yours and his) but am surprised about the noise problems you have with your camera. Even 800 doesn't look bad on mine in some situations, but I probably wouldn't go above 400 in a case like this. Have you ever tried Noise Ninja or equiv?

I did shoot RAW, and that can be a life saver in situations like this. I do have a stand alone version of Noise Ninja, and I think it does a pretty good job. The fact that it's a stand alone version adds an extra program to my post processing and that I don't like, but I can make that sacraifice when I have to. I think my biggest problem with the noise level, is more of a personal prefferance for me than anything else. ISO 200 & 400 aren't all that bad, and I was kicking myself in the butt for not bumping it up before I even got home that night.

I think the biggest reason I don't like the noise my camera produces comes from cropping in on birds for Paul's bird thread. Using a long lens, I have to bump up the ISO to get a fast enuf shutterspeed for hand holding a 500mm f6.3 lens. Then when I crop the image, the noise is very noticeable. I don't notice it on 95% of my stuff, but then again I shoot most of my stuff at 100. I think that small percentage has scared me into not wanting to go any higher than I have to.