Is there room for improvement?

[u8myufo]

After asking in another thread about what settings to use for doing a few shots for a friend who has just upgraded his lighting kit, I ran a few shots off. Below are a couple of examples of what I ended up with, I stayed with the 50mm 1.8 and used a tripod, av mode and reduced the power on the 580ex as much as I thought was needed. I just wonder if I have caught the atmosphere of the lights enough :shrug: maybe just a bit more time spent on pp will get them looking better. He also would like some done with people in the scene so I wondered if I would be ok going with these settings to catch the mood of the lights and freeze the movement of people dancing? My other school of thought for doing it would be using manual on the camera with a faster shutter speed and maybe bounce the flash more. Any advice appreciated.
Thanks

 

[danieljamesphoto]

i really like the second one, i think the fact that its darker at the top of the shot really draws your eye to the beams of light v.nice work.

AV mode may work with people but what sort of speed were these shots getting? also what ISO did you use?