Getting well lit event photographs in low lighting can be a struggle for any photographer.  Generally you want a little more light on the subject (person or group) than the background but you still want the background visible since it provides the ambience.

In addition it's good to get diffuse lighting on the subject which is soft and complementary and to have it from a point off the camera axis so there is shape and form to the subject.

But then comes the crunch.  You want to capture the moment. This means the real joy, surprise, excitement on people's faces.  Usually at events the subjects are not experienced at posing so you can't manufacture these moments you have to just wait for matters to unfold and have lightening quick reflexes to capture what's happening before the smiles fade and expressions become dull and lifeless.

Therefore there's always a trade off between perfectly lit and perfect lighting since to get all the lighting working takes time.  Ideally you want to bounce the flash but in many events you find you have dark or coloured walls and ceilings so you would need to carry round an umbrella to bounce from.  Well, that pretty much stops you from creeping up on people and capturing them quickly.

The simplest solution I've found is to shoot at the maximum sensitivity of the camera and a wide aperture then have a camera mounted flash a stop under exposed to just throw a little extra life onto the subject.

The example photography from to the right shows what sort of effect this can produce.  Shooting at 1/60s, f4.0 and ISO 1600 this generates quite a grainy image which will only really allow you to print up to 8"x12" which is good enough.  However, the hard camera flash is throwing a hard shaddow which is hardly preferred.  Also the use of such a wide aperture meant the girls had to be the same distance from the camera. Furthermore the very short depth of field and use of manual focusing for speed meant that the focal point is Rhian's belt with her eyes very slightly out of focus.

It would have been preferable to shoot at f6.7 or more but then the camera flash would have become harsher and a lot of the abience of the environment would have been lost.

This is all shot with a speedlite which helps to permit several flashes a second to really capture the moment before the girls become bored.

I've seen a few photographers using hand held flashes with omnibounce diffusers held a little way from the camera which can reduce the harshness of the shadows and give a little more form when ambient lighting is less.

Check back since I plan to try more techniques over the next few weeks so will add a few more examples.