The local office of company I work for, EMC, has a meeting each quarter in which the management guys go over our numbers from prior quarter (among other announcements). Some of them had been held at Dave & Busters, though most of the recent ones have been held at Studio Movie Grill. (Studio Movie Grill is a local movie theater chain that also serves food.)
The general format of the meetings is that the first hour or so is mingling time, followed by the main presentation after that. There’s also an open bar and buffet of various snacks (like pizza and cookies, just off the top of my head) and that certainly doesn’t hurt. In all, I actually find myself looking forward to these meetings a bit. The information conveyed by the presentation is part of it, but I also appreciate being able to catch-up with my coworkers. (As a consulting company, it’s not uncommon for various people to be strewn about across different client sites.)
A few days beforehand, one of my coworkers asked if I would take some pictures during the meeting. Since I enjoy taking photos anyway, I thought I’d give it a shot. I mean, how hard could it be? Well, I came to discover that Studio Movie Grill is approximately as hospitable — photographically speaking — as if I had been on the moon :-/.
You know that momentary sense of blindness you experience as you walk into a movie theater as your eyes acclimate to the darkness? Well, as luck would have it, that’s exactly how a camera sees that environment — except without the acclimation part. To make the most of the light that was there, I ended up using just about every low-light trick of which I could think:
- I set the lens to its largest aperture, f/2.8. (I was using Canon’s 17-55 f/2.8 IS at the time.)
- I cranked up the ISO to 1600 (which actually wasn’t as noisy as I thought it might be).
- I also made use of my trusty flash, Canon’s 430EX.
In the end, I still had to throw away a good handful of underexposed shots (though there were also a good many that worked out). Other than what I had already tried (with the aperture, ISO, and so on), I’m not sure if there was anything else I could have done. As far as the ISO goes, I might consider ISO 3200 next time, but I’m a little uneasy about the prospect of introducing more chroma noise. The flash itself worked well, though I think there’s only so much it could do. (I suppose I could upgrade to Canon’s 580EX II, but I haven’t yet wrapped my head around how much of an improvement that may be able to offer.)
Lighting wonkiness aside, I was pleased that quite a few shots did turn out all right. Studio Movie Grill generally works out fine as venue — the seating is comfortable and the beer is always cold — but it’s just a shame that movie theaters have to be so dark inside, eh? ;)