Simple Event Lighting Setup with Canon eTTL II Wireless System
Shooting an awards ceremony usually doesn’t allow you the opportunity to setup much in the way of lighting.
At a recent event I only had a few minutes to get whatever I was going to do setup and tested and I didn’t have anyone available to stand in for the speaker to test the lighting. While I would usually throw up a couple of YN560’s and some wireless flash triggers, the problem was I didn’t have either the time or a subject to help dial in the lighting. Sure I could have used a light meter but I also didn’t really know how things might change as the spotlights came on and I wanted to make sure things were going to work right.
For me, this would normally be a simple case of using the PocketWizard ControlTL system with the Zone Controller so I could change my lighting on the fly from wherever in the room I ended up. The reason I didn’t go with my regular Blackbelt Lighting triggers was simply a convenience factor so I could change the flash output remotely.
The second concern I had was where to put the lights to get good lighting on the speakers without blocking the view from the tables. While I had a good position and angle, using an umbrella would get in the way of some people’s view while also flashing the audience at the same time.
The solution had to have the following qualities:
- Small enough not to block the view from the side
- Big enough to provide a good light source
- Can’t be obnoxious to the audience
- Had to be able to adjust the power output remotely
While this isn’t a huge list of requirements, it does represent a unique challenge. How to you get something big enough to give a good light source but not be really visible from the audience? My solution was actually quite simple and required very little in additional equipment over two Canon 580 flashes.
The Lighting Setup
Let’s start with the actual lighting setup. The main light is a Canon 580 EX speedlite on a lightstand to camera right. The fill light is a Canon 580 EX II mounted on-camera. The 580 EX main light was switched to Slave mode on wireless group B with the body of the flash aimed back towards the audience.
The 580 EX II on the camera was in Master mode on Group A. With this setup, especially because the remote flash was in front of the Master light and aimed back to the on-camera flash’s position, this setup should work quite well without the need for a radio transmitter system.
While I would normally use the PocketWizard ControlTL system for this setup, except that the battery in the MiniTTL transmitter was dead, and since it is not a common battery, I had no means to replace it before the shoot. (The battery sells for about $12 at Radio Shack or $3.99 at Batteries Plus).
The Modifier
The choice of modifier here is what really pulled everything together. I used a Rogue Large FlashBender. The large size provides a nice size light source so the shadows wouldn’t be too harsh. The FlashBender also allowed me to fold down one side so that when the flash went off the audience didn’t really see it, so the flash going off wasn’t annoying to the audience.
Since the FlashBender is much smaller than an umbrella, it was basically hid behind the existing balloons so it wasn’t blocking the view from the audience on that side of the room.
The Results
Using only the eTTL Wireless System built into the Canon 580 EX/580 EX II flashes I had the ability to adjust lighting ratios between the main light and the fill light.
The FlashBender rounded out the solution by being “big enough†without being too big that it would block the view. The ability to fold the one side down to flag the flash from the audience kept the flash from bothering the audience.
In the end, we ended up with what looked like nice window light even though there were no windows in the room at all.
The flash ratio was generally 1:4 (B group 4x brighter than fill) and with the A being a bare flash firing right at the subject and the B light firing up through a modifier, this create a fairly nice directional light.
If I had to do anything differently, I would have brought in a larger lightstand so I could have got the flash higher to add a little down-angle to the shadows.
With all of the gear I have, this shoot really boiled down to the camera, two 580 EX/EX II flashes, a light stand, a swivel mount, and a simple light modifier. The end results look quite nice, certainly much nicer than just using an on-camera flash and blasting flat light on everyone.
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Being used to Nikon CLS, I'm curious what you mean by "1:4" ratio with eTTL. Were you using eTTL with a 2-stop ratio (4x light) or 4-stop difference? Also, the eTTL was compensating for the light modifier, i.e., you weren't using eTTL with manually set levels, correct? This is a very useful setup to keep in mind. Thanks.
According to the manual, a 1:4 ratio should be a 4 stop difference. In practice however a lot depends on the angles so its a little trial and error. Normally I would use manually set levels but I had a range variety of people of different heights and some would be further forward than others so I opted to go with eTTL to let it compensate automatically.
Interesting… I find with Nikon iTTL the results can be all over the map, but once you get the setup, the results stay pretty consistent with the same settings, assuming all you do is change distances. The results also depend hugely on the matrix metering ability of the camera model with much better results from the sophisticated D700/D3+ models.
The eTTL system worked extremely well in this situation. I have said many times that eTTL usually works great 95% of the time but for me, its usually the 5% which are the ones I really want which is why I usually shoot manual. In this case, manual probably would have been perfectly fine and a quick aperture adjustment would have fixed anything that failed.
On the other hand, I am writing the Canon Speedliting System – Digital Field Guide Third Edition so I really wanted to brush up on my eTTL and Canon wireless setups.
Nice. That really does look like window light, too.
Interesting. I've been using this same technique for concert shots in small clubs by taking advantage of Canon's built in wireless system. It's cool to see it applied in this setting. Normally I'd approach this using natural light.
Looks like you had the light snooted to a degree – made for a nice effect on the scene without giving the flat appearance that the spotlights put on the scene – perfect idea!
BTW: Your google account shows offline – has for a few days now – everything ok?
The left side of the Flashbender was bent over slightly to keep the flash from being seen by the audience. The the flash going off for about an hour's worth of speakers, it become very annoying to everyone. The more you can control the light and keep the audience from seeing it (other than the obvious pop on the subject) the less obnoxious you are. While an umbrella would have lit the scene and the subject well, it would have block the view from camera right and subjected everyone to hundreds of flash pops. Using the Flashbender was a great solution to keep the light under control.
Interesting… I find with Nikon iTTL the results can be all over the map, but once you get the setup, the results stay pretty consistent with the same settings, assuming all you do is change distances. The results also depend hugely on the matrix metering ability of the camera model with much better results from the sophisticated D700/D3+ models.
The eTTL system worked extremely well in this situation. I have said many times that eTTL usually works great 95% of the time but for me, its usually the 5% which are the ones I really want which is why I usually shoot manual. In this case, manual probably would have been perfectly fine and a quick aperture adjustment would have fixed anything that failed.
On the other hand, I am writing the Canon Speedliting System – Digital Field Guide Third Edition so I really wanted to brush up on my eTTL and Canon wireless setups.