Well, this Saturday I had a wedding (reception) shoot. Although I got some great moments, I was very, very unhappy with my lighting. The Nikon SB-50DX just didn't have the oomph to light up the room like I needed. So I went ahead and purchased a new flash, the SB-800.

In shooting a wedding reception, it's important to capture the feel of everyone having a good time. The problem with this one was the number of people versus the size of the room they were in. Since Charley wreaked havoc with us here in Florida, many people couldn't show up so there was a lot of space left wide open. I had a hard time taking pictures of people that didn't show the empty room.

To compensate for this, I had to zoom in fairly close. I've got a lot of head shots because that was the only way to fill up the frame. One thing I have to work on is taking much wider angle shots, but this was not the party to try that with. Even the over the head type shots just weren't populated enough to be effective.

Another really annoying problem was the back of the room where the DJ was which was a solid black alcove. A black wall will suck up almost any available light you have. On a few occasions I got a shot that used the black as a nice background, but there were many shots where I had both this huge black wall and a bright window. My light meter got a migraine and gave up.

All in all I had some good shots albeit very dark. With the new flash and a diffuser, I should be able to handle bad lighting situations a little better. I'm sure the wife is going to get tired of the practice sessions that will soon occur.