Illuminating a dark room with flash

[Russ MCR]

Hi

Just asking for a bit of advice on how to illuminate a room with flash (using separate lighting from that which will light the subject). I'll give you 3 different scenarios:

1. A large dimly lit stairwell with surrounding walls made of medium toned stone. Think Natural History museum but ambient light three stops darker

2. A white-walled and reasonably low white ceilinged room, medium sized

3. A medium to dark walled room (royal blue or bergundy say) and reasonably low blue or bergundy ceilinged room, medium sized.

I'm not really thinking mood or effect lighting – just to purely to help offer context to where the subject is placed (so 'objective' lighting)

Any advice muchly appreciated.

Cheers,
Russ

 

[Russ MCR]

PS. You've only got flashguns, but infinite choice of diffusers.

 

[DizMatt]

well speedlights or spots.
also speedlights won't have line of sight so you'll need EF remotes not IR.
if you're doing longer exposure you have more options
I would setup to specifically illuminate each feature in the same way you might setup each strobe in a studio separately.

My thought would be to hide the flashes but have the most diffuse light source from them
I've seen this done effectively in a long kitchen I think once, each speedlight illuminating a section seemlessly.

 

[Russ MCR]

Yes –*sorry, flashguns are remote equipped.

Using a longer exposure (a second?) I'm a bit anxious about getting an ambient exposure from the subject mixed with the flash exposure, making it look like two overlayed exposures.

For the stairwell scenario (1), I'm thinking of putting a flashgun behind a shoot through umbrella and have the exposure set low relative to the light used specifically for the subject. I'm imagining this is flawed but at the moment it's the best solution I can think of. Also I should note that although the stairwell is vast, opportunity to position the subject away from a wall behind is limited.