So Erin and I decided to have a photo booth at our super bowl party. We went to a friend's wedding in December, and the booth there seemed like it went over really well.
I also recently acquired a flash (Canon 430EX II) and some supporting equipment. So it seemed like a great opportunity to put them to use.
The setup will probably sound more complicated than it actually was. It was pretty quick to get going, and I think it worked pretty well. I had the camera facing a plain off-white wall, with the focal length set as wide as I could and still only have plain wall in the background. I set the flash up at about a 45 degree angle from the center of the frame at camera right. The flash is shooting slightly downward, and into a shoot-through umbrella to soften and diffuse the light. The flash is connected to the camera via the cable and PC sync adapters from the Strobist kit linked above. The camera was triggered using a Vello Wireless Shutterboss Timer remote. I ended up setting the flash to 1/2 power output, and the camera was set to f/9 and ISO400 with a 1/200 shutter speed. The camera exposure was low enough that it took black frames without the flash, so that I didn't have to worry about getting white balance right with ambient lighting. We also wrote some quick instructions, though those weren't really necessary for such a small party.
On the support side, I ended up tethering the camera to a laptop running Canon's EOS Utility. I used the Remote Shooting mode, which has a Quick Preview window that shows the last shot taken so that photos could be reviewed immediately. I also set the laptop screensaver to come on after a couple of minutes and cycle through the directory where the photos were being stored.
The photo booth wasn't as popular as I had hoped. I think the Super Bowl was too much of a focal point. I certainly enjoyed myself with it. Here are a few of my favorites that came out of it.
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